Camp, Walter | First edition of the first book on American football

The Passion of American Collectors: Property of Barbara and Ira Lipman

Camp, Walter

American Football. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1891

Small 8vo (167 x 108 mm). 31 portrait plates of Ivy League football players, one full-page diagram; lightly dampstained at lower margin. Publisher's blue cloth, front cover with a "coat-of-arms" vignette featuring a stars-and stripes shield and two screaming eagles clutching footballs in their talons; extremities rubbed. 

First edition by the "Father of American Football." One of the players depictced, Yales William "Pudge" Heffelfinger, is considered the first athlete to play American football professionally.

PROVENANCE

George J. Gibbon Jr. (contemporary pencil signature on front and rear endpapers)