This book is included in the Self Reliance Self Defense section.
Introduction So many books have been written upon guns and shooting that no apology is needed for publishing a guide to them. Incomplete and inadequate as the compilation may be, it is better than none at all; for, if practical utility be the standard by which to measure the value of technical books, few will rank higher in the estimation of students than do bibliographies. To the book collector this work will be probably of little value: it was compiled for the use of a writer, not a book buyer, and is both conceived and arranged with a view to best serving the needs of the student. Having departed from the customary method of arrangement, a short explanation is desirable. The classification of books according to the accident of the initial letter of the name of the person writing them entails much additional labour upon all who consult a bibliography in order to identify a book, instead of for information concerning the writer of it; the arrangement of books alphabetically by titles is equally objectionable ; and the method of Rumpf, who classed the books in accordance with their size, is worst of all. The classification by authors' names is a survival: in days when authors were few, men of erudition were supposed to know at least the names of all, and doubtless possessed some idea as to the dates at which the various authors wrote. Now authors are numerous, and the persons who most often consult a bibliography, what-ever their knowledge of the subject, are rarely well acquainted with the names of the persons who have written upon it. Moreover, in the history of firearms it is the date, and in technical matters the fact, which is all-important, the personality of the author being frequently of no moment whatever. Learned persons may at once recognise Walter in Valturius and Greaves in Gravius, but learned persons are not likely to take so much interest in guns and shooting as are class journalists, technical instructors, and gunmakers persons who are not learned in the dry-as-dust sense. Another trouble with names, particularly foreign names, is to recognise the important designation: Alenzo Martinez del Espinar would, in accordance with the British Museum rules of indexing, have to be sought in the catalogue under D, the portion of the name least likely to be remembered. With some double names, particularly those of Austrian writers, it is customary to place the Christian, or added, name after the family name a process of inversion which human powers of recollection often perform automatically, and after a short time recall Alvarez Perez as Perez Alvarez. In order to save the time of the student, in the alphabetical list of authors some authors have more than one entry, owing to the persistence with which the added name surged up into memory, whilst the correct index name could not be recollected. Clearly, for the student of history classification by dates is likely to be more convenient. If the student wishes to learn what was known of firearms in the seventeenth century, it is better to turn to a catalogue of the works published at that time than to search through many lists of unknown names, and often, upon choosing a writer, consult the work only to find that it belongs to another period. In the same way the language in which books are written is of minor importance, and the size of the book probably of no account whatever. Therefore, in the first part of this bibliography, which is devoted to ancient books those published between 1450 and 1850 the order is mainly chronological ; but the books of the last century are subdivided into English and Foreign, and those of the first half of the present century into English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. In dealing with modern books a different classification is advisable. To most it is of the first importance to learn whether the book is written in English if not, in what language it is written; or to know what technical books exist in any particular language. The subdivisions in this second part therefore deal in the first place with books in English those relating to arms generally, to particular descriptions of arms, to the technicalities of gun-making, to the proof of guns, to ballistics or gunnery, to the art of shooting with gun and rifle, and, lastly, to sport with the gun at home and abroad. The same method of subdividing is adhered to with French and German books, and, in a minor degree, with those of Italy and Spain. No bibliography of practical proportions could be produced unless many works were purposely excluded. In this compilation books will be found which at first sight will appear to have no right of entry as long as others are excluded; but there are publications with misleading or too comprehensive titles which need to be specified in order that time may not be wasted by referring to certain books owing to a misconception of their nature. "The Rifle and how to use it," by J. V. Bridgeman, is no indication that the work is a farce, and originally performed at the Haymarket in 1859. A docket to this effect will save the student time and the librarian useless labour. The exclusion extends in a complete manner to modern military treatises dealing with ordnance, those of a general nature, and those for the most part devoted to the art of war fortification and military tactics; all such works are enumerated in the military bibliographies, which may be readily consulted. Many sporting works, in which something is said of firearms and shooting, have also had to be passed by, and only a bare hundred out of the many recent works devoted to sport abroad have been selected. Foreign sporting works, of little technical interest, have also been omitted; the reader needing them may advantageously consult the more general bibliography of Souhait. Russian sporting books have been excluded it must not, however, be inferred that Russia has no literature of this description, only that the typographical difficulties were considerable, and the interest at present taken in Russian books of the class infinitesimal. The bibliographical notices in "Priroda y Ohhota" and in the service periodicals will probably be sufficient for the purposes of the few readers likely to require to consult Russian sporting books. The appendices contain a short bibliography of works relating to explosives, such works having been selected as likely to prove of the greatest service to the student of the history of guns and shooting; lists of the most noteworthy technical papers read before learned societies; and an index to technical articles in various periodicals. The student of history will find short references to works dealing with the archaeology of firearms, a list of catalogues of various collections of arms, and also the titles of various bibliographies, which may be of use in supplementing the one now presented. The introduction of firearms into Europe preceded the invention of printing by nearly two centuries; but the earliest manuscripts which treated of guns were subsequently printed, or, like those of Cataneo, were lost. As is well known, the first mention of the use of firearms in England, contained in a contemporary record, is found in the indenture of John Starlyng and Helmyng Leget, dated 1338, and referring to the equipment of the King's ships Bernard de la Tour and Christqfre de la Tour; but there are several who wrote of their use in the past tense; as John Barbour, who in 1375 stated of the Scotch that in 1327- "Twa noweltys that dai thai saw That forouth in Scotland had bene nane Tymmris for helmys war the tane, That thaim thoucht than off grete bewte And alstia wondre for to se. The tothyr crakys war off wer That thai befor herd nevir er." The use of firearms seems to have been so widely known in Chaucer's time as to warrant that writer in drawing a simile for great velocity from the flight of a shot, thus: "Swift as a pillet out of a gonne When fire is in the pouder ronne." At least a score separate and distinct treatises on firearms, gunpowder or matters incidental to their employment, had been written and published on the Continent before an English work on the subject was produced. To William Bourne, who in 1587 published the "Arte of Shootinge in Great Ordnance" belongs the honour of first place; his little book of 94 pages contained much that was original, and served as a basis for several better known and more pretentious works. On the Continent the literature of the art of war has always been more extensive than in England; and military science was one of the few subjects which could be treated liberally. True, the works were dedicated to, and that is to say, were not only under the patronage of, but were practically supported by, some strong ruler; and the strong ruler was ordinarily a successful warrior whose achievements were lavishly extolled in the works. To this class must be ascribed the book of Valturius and some of the treatises written by Cataneo, Colliado, and Tartaglia. The more practical among this class of writers gave instructions for the manufacture of cannon, gunpowder, projectiles and military fireworks; for in those days, when it was usual to build a cannon at the place where it was to be used, and to break it up after it had served in the one siege, the science of gun construction was a necessary part of the knowledge of a good commander. Another class of writer was that to which W. Bourne belonged, the practical gunner. Very numerous are the treatises on the art of aiming cannon, and the instruction of the "perfect canoneer" seems to have included always a careful grounding in elementary arithmetic and plane geometry. Thus the historian and philosopher on the one hand repeated the lore of ancient military commanders, with the addition of elementary facts drawn from recent experiences, and sometimes gave indications of the application of natural law to the flight of projectiles; and on the other, master gunners wrote practical instructions for the acquisition of a difficult art and the study of elementary mathematics. It was not until the epoch-marking book of Benjamin Robins appeared, in 1742, that theoretical gunnery received particular attention from the writers of technical books; from that date the works on artillery, instead of containing rule-of-thumb descriptions, like those of Ufano, Saint Julien, Gaya, and Siemenowicz, treated the principles of gunnery more in the modern scientific manner. With reference to the manufacture of small arms, not so much was written, but more probably than was written of any other industrial art. It is hardly to be expected that any practical art can have a considerable literature; for what the skilled workman learns by practice he cannot impart by verbal descriptions, even were he so minded. When hand firearms came into general use the trade guilds were already firmly established, and a separate guild, that of gunmakers, was not possible in all centres, becavise the existing guilds of the smiths and the carpenters divided the work between them, and were jealous of any interference with their privileges. As the "art and mystery" of gunmaking was not recognised until the end of the seventeenth century, and as arms were considered national in the sense that their manufacture could be improved and their form changed without incurring the enmity of manufacturing corporations, firearms developed quickly. Cataneo wrote a treatise informing how the processes of manufacture should be carried on, Bossi told how to improve the principle of construction, and Jacquinet showed how the finished weapon should be ornamented ; all before any Gunmakers' Company was chartered in England, and when the Suhl gunmakers were petitioning for incorporation. Not that the inventor's lot was any more happy in the seventeenth century than in the nineteenth. Poor Bossi, who appears to have been a genius and determined upon perfecting the double-barrelled gun, started from his native Rome to try his fortune in Flanders, even then a centre of the firearms industry. His success there appears to have been poor, for he subsequently tried Paris and other centres, and the double gun remained an unappreciated invention. Quite apart from these writers of treatises upon firearms from the military standpoint, there remain to be considered the champions of the gun as a sporting weapon. Although, as Sidney Smith states, the tenth Muse is courted in this country more assiduously than in any other, and although the earliest known manuscript in the English language is upon a sporting topic, and the first "boke" in our tongue likewise devoted to a princely pastime, there are no English writers upon sport with firearms until late in the seventeenth century. Pablo del Fucar and Erasmo di Yalvasone had both treated of the use of firearms for sporting purposes in the sixteenth century; Tamariz de la Escaler and Vita Bonfadini had written treatises on the art of wing shooting long before Blome produced his great tome and taught how to creep within range of jugging partridges and pot them unawares. The "Maison Rustique" was the precursor of the country encyclopaedia, of which Blome's book was a fair specimen, and a variety of which is still with us, even to-day "British Rural Sports" is on the railway bookstalls, but these early compilations were far from being the thorough works modern encyclopaedias have become, now that each article is contributed by an expert and constitutes not seldom the best monograph extant on the subject treated. The early cyclopaedias were put together by the publisher's hack, and the student in search of original facts and reliable information will do well to avoid them and choose some of the less pretentious publications. The poets have contributed not a few lines to firearms. The epic on the chase was a favourite essay for Italian writers. It was a congenial theme with the much-satirised poet laureate Pye; and though his verse is far from approaching in interest the better known "Chace" of W. Somerville, he is far from being the worst author of metrical lines on shooting. Watts wrote facetiously, and Aldington heavily and seriously ; Francis Fawkes and K. McLemon have not made their names immortal by their poems on sport with the gun ; but, notwithstanding their example and lack of success, verse on the subject is still being produced. An important class of authors has been recruited from the ranks of the gunmakers. Bossi and Jacquinet in the seventeenth, Page and Baker in the eighteenth, Brandeis, Deane, Dongall, and three generations of Greeners in the nineteenth centuries, have each and all had practical experience of the trade, and, taken collectively, may be said to have contributed the greater part of the original matter found in the technical literature of the firearms industry. It is surprising, even to one acquainted with literary plagiarism, to note the persistency with which information on technical and sporting matters was annexed in the "good old days," and palmed off as first-hand authority. The much-extolled Marolles, whose essay of 1784 was translated into English and has been constantly quoted, drew freely upon Vita Bonfadini and Tamariz de la Escaler, less from Spadoni, Juan Mateos, and Martinez del Espinar, leaving the original matter to be gathered by interviewing some Parisian gunmakers and listening to the gossip of sporting friends. Again, what a mine of wealth to the writer on field sports Colonel P. Hawker's "Instructions" has proved! To another class belong the authors who, at the commencement of this century, were so infatuated with Scottish sports as to create a special literature. Very poor is the quality of much that was produced in the passion of the time. "Unreal in fact and artificial in form" is likely to be the verdict of posterity upon the productions of even the best of the writers; though to state it now would probably bring angry retorts from the sportsmen still living to whom the craving for northern field sports was once no imaginary desire. Better, in the sense of being more practical, than Wilson are the reminiscences of Scrope; better, in the sense of being more natural, are Colquhoun of "Moor and Loch" and Lloyd of "Northern Europe"; but worse, from the literary point of view, are many works even more recently issued. In truth, the ancient fire appears to have almost burnt out, and such light as is shed by the glow of dying embers shows that the love of sport which animated such writers as Scrope and Colquhoun no longer burns within the breast of the modern sportsman-author. Scotch shooting appears more as a fashion, deerstalking a function, and grouse-shooting an exhibition in which the society man, and often the society woman, is expected to share. It would be wrong to attribute the change to the want of skill in the writers; they do but reflect the tendency of the times. Indications are not wanting to show that the special craving, or that stimulus to action which only the sport of shooting can appease, no longer occurs with the frequency it did half a century ago. Shooting is now but a means to an end: the end may be some social excitement among a country house party, or it may be the collection of a wild Thibetan camel for a natural history museum; but the prompting does not arise purely from the love of sport, as it once did, if our authors are to be believed. To many, a life of adventure is a necessity: when the shooting of large game is also a way of earning money, no wonder men enter into the business as upon any other career; but to large game hunting for commercial purposes an end will quickly come unless game is more efficiently protected than was the American bison. The percentage of sportsmen to whom the agony of a buffalo dropped to their rifle is a sight to remember with pleasure, is small, and to the majority of these a stalk in Chillingham Park would probably be as pleasurable as an expedition to Central Africa. On the other hand, there is a very large and rapidly growing community for whom all things living in a state of nature have a powerful attraction. To many men it would afford more real enjoyment to get close to a herd of deer and observe their habits than to stalk within range for a pot shot. These men, who would hunt with the camera, and prefer to bring back a good negative showing large game sporting in native haunts, rather than an elephant's tail or a tiger's skin, have no sympathy with the sportsmen whose only object is to kill, and who by dissociating themselves from woodcraft and its attractions, have killed their desire for sport, and require only to glut their craving for blood or win approbation for their marksmanship. Thus it seems probable that, for the purposes of sport as for the purposes of war, the hand firearm is rapidly reaching the close of its day. To those to whom the literature of field sports written half a century ago is familiar, it will seem impossible that the enthusiasm can have died out; and to those to whom the rifleman of the fifties was the hero and saviour the hysterical writing of those times proclaimed him, it would never occur that the man with the gun is to be of quite secondary importance in the wars of the future. It would be idle to argue that shooting will not long continue as a sport with some classes, and that the infantry man will not again do excellent service in guerilla warfare; but the contention deduced from contemporary literature, and not now advanced for the first time, is that the hand firearm, both for purposes of sport and as a military weapon, will not, in the early future, be regarded as possessing the importance attributed to it in the recent past. The delight of sports afield will be more keenly enjoyed by the man in closer harmony with nature than the modern skilled wing shot; and, in the event of war occurring between civilised nations, the machine gun and an endless variety of automatically acting mechanical contrivances to insure the defence of the party attacked will have superseded the infantry man. But firearms, both sporting and military, at present engage the attention of the most clever among a generation of able mechanical inventors; in the manufacture of guns there is expended some of the best skilled labour the century has produced, and whatever its future may prove, none can deny the present achievements of a notable industry. To the historian, firearms, of all weapons, will present masterful attraction; the part they have played in the world's history is too great ever to be ignored, even should the part they have yet to play prove to be one of minor importance. WIRT GERRARE. July 1st, 1894. Contents INTRODUCTION. TECHNICAL BOOKS AND THE WRITERS OF THEM, WITH SOME PARTICULARS OF FIREARMS INVENTIONS, THE HISTORY OF GUNMAKING ON THE CONTINENT OF EUROPE, IN ENGLAND AND IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PRACTICE AND ART OF SHOOTING ON THE WING PART I. ANCIENT BOOKS (1472 - 1850). BOOKS WRITTEN PRIOR TO 1600 SIXTEENTH-CENTURY MANUSCRIPTS SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY BOOKS EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH BOOKS FOREIGN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BOOKS BOOKS PUBLISHED l800 - 1850, IN ENGLISH BOOKS PUBLISHED l800 - 1850, IN FRENCH BOOKS PUBLISHED l800 - 1850, IN GERMAN BOOKS PUBLISHED l800 - 1850, IN ITALIAN BOOKS PUBLISHED l800 - 1850, IN SPANISH PART II. MODERN BOOKS (1851-1894). ENGLISH BOOKS: GUNS AND SHOOTING - GUNMAKING - GUN TRADE - PROOF OF GUNS RIFLES - THE VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT - MONOGRAPHS OF SPECIAL ARMS GUNNERY - BALLISTICS - FIELD TRIALS - ART OF RIFLE SHOOTING CURRENT ENGLISH SPORTING BOOKS SELECTED ENGLISH BOOKS ON FOREIGN SPORT EUROPE ASIA AFRICA AMERICA AUSTRALASIA FRENCH BOOKS: CURRENT WORKS ON SHOOTING GUNS GUN MANUFACTURE GUNNERY GERMAN BOOKS: GENERAL WORKS MILITARY RIFLES MUSKETRY GUN-MAKING SPORTING ITALIAN BOOKS SPANISH BOOKS VARIOUS LANGUAGES PART III. APPENDICES. A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF EXPLOSIVES : BOOKS RELATING TO GUNPOWDER MODERN HIGH EXPLOSIVES, ETC. AMMUNITION, GUN WOUNDS, ETC. TECHNICAL PAPERS, MAGAZINE ARTICLES, AND NEWSPAPER REFERENCES SELECTED BOOKS ON OLD ARMS, FOREIGN ARMS, ETC. CATALOGUES OF COLLECTIONS OF ANCIENT ARMS BIBLIOGRAPHIES: SPORTING MILITARY ENCYCLOPEDIAS AND TECHNICAL DICTIONARIES INDEX TO AUTHORS SOME RECENT BOOKS AND OMISSIONS UP TO THE END OF 1895 End of Preview.
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