American Sportsman's Library
Encyclopedia
The American Sportsman's Library is an early and important series of 16 uniformly-bound volumes on sporting subjects, from an American perspective, published by the Macmillan Company (see Macmillan Publishers
Macmillan Publishers
Macmillan Publishers Ltd, also known as The Macmillan Group, is a privately held international publishing company owned by Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. It has offices in 41 countries worldwide and operates in more than thirty others.-History:...

) in the period 1902-1905. Caspar Whitney
Caspar Whitney
Caspar William Whitney was an American author, editor, explorer, and war correspondent. He originated the concept of the All-American team in college football in 1889 when he worked for Harper's Magazine....

, the owner/editor of Outing (magazine)
Outing (magazine)
Outing was a late-nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American magazine covering a variety of sporting activities. It began publication in 1882 as the Wheelman and had four title changes before ceasing publication in 1923....

 and a well-known outdoorsman and sporting journalist, edited the series. Authors, including Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...

 (writing while President
President
A president is a leader of an organization, company, trade union, university, or country.Etymologically, a president is one who presides, who sits in leadership...

 of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

), were noted experts in their fields.

M.L. Biscotti, in American Sporting Book Series (1994), states that "[t]he authors of these titles were a Who's Who of American sportsmen of the era....Macmillan designed a premium series....The sixteen titles produced in this series represent that era's best sporting literature."

The trade edition of each volume was 7⅞" by 5½" with green cloth covers with gilt titles and decorations. The books cost $2 or $3 each, relatively high prices for the time (about $51 and $77 inflation-adjusted to 2009). They included extensive black-and-white illustrations from paintings or photographs. Macmillan also issued a "large paper" edition limited to one hundred numbered copies of each work. These were 9" x 6¼" and bound in three-quarter olive green (typically now faded to brown) leather. They cost $7.50 in 1902 (about $193 inflation-adjusted to 2009). A 1924 reprinting of the trade edition introduced dust jackets and a slightly reduced size (7½" x 5").

Macmillan advertised advance notice of, but ultimately did not publish, four additional volumes. These include Skating, Hockey, and Kite Sailing; Baseball and Football; The Bear Family; and Cougar, Wildcat, Wolf, and Fox.

A useful series for comparison purposes is the slightly earlier British Badminton Library
Badminton Library
The Badminton Library, called in full The Badminton Library of Sports and Pastimes, was a sporting and publishing project conceived and founded by Henry Somerset, 8th Duke of Beaufort . Between 1885 and 1902 it developed into a series of sporting books which aimed to cover comprehensively all major...

 of Sports and Pastimes. The Derrydale Press published a series of high-quality American sporting books in the late 1920s and 1930s that, to some extent, supplanted the American Sportsman's Library.

Whitney testified in a lawsuit against him that he earned a salary of $1,500 (about $39,000 inflation-adjusted to 2009) for editing the American Sportsman's Library.

Volumes of the American Sportsman's Library

  • Anderson, E.L. and P. Collier, Riding and Driving (1905)

  • Brownell, L.W., Photography for the Sportsman Naturalist (1904)

  • Busby, Hamilton, The Trotting and Pacing Horse in America (1904)

  • Crowther, Samuel and A. Ruhl, Rowing and Track Athletics (1904)

  • Graham, Joseph A., The Sporting Dog (1904)

  • Henshall, James A., Bass, Pike, Perch and other Game Fishes of America (1903)

  • Holder, Charles, The Big Game Fishes of the United States (1903)

  • Money, A.W. et al., Guns, Ammunition and Tackle (1904)

  • Paret, J.P., Lawn Tennis, Lacrosse: Its Past, Present and Future (1904)

  • Roosevelt, Theodore et al., The Deer Family (1902)

  • Sage, Dean et al., Salmon and Trout (1902)

  • Sandys, Edwyn and T.S. Van Dyke, Upland Game Birds (1902)

  • Sanford, L.C. et al., The Waterfowl Family (1903)

  • Stephens, William P., American Yachting (1904)

  • Trevathan, Charles E., The American Thoroughbred (1905)

  • Whitney, Caspar et al., Musk Ox, Bison, Sheep, and Goat (1904)
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