This book is titled "Life And Sport In Aiken And Those Who Made it", written by Harry Worcester Smith and published in New York by the Derrydale Press in 1935, and it is one of only 950 copies that were issued. The book is also a first edition, according to WorldCat. The book comes in its original green cloth, with black lettering on the spine and gilt lettering on the front cover, decorated endpapers showing a map of Aiken, South Carolina and the bookplate of Mary Louise Corely, then the half-title, a mounted colored plate on the frontis showing the Aiken Drag Hunt, a protective tissue guard, the title page, then the limitation and copyright page dated 1935, a Contents page and three pages listing the illustrations, a foreword dated January 3, 1935, 220 pages of text, an Index that runs from 221 through 237, and it has the Battered Brigade fold-out in between pages 52 and 53. The Aiken Drag Hunt is the oldest drag hunt in the nation, and it got its name from a fox scent on a cloth being dragged across the terrain to create a trail for the hounds to follow. Mounted riders follow the pack, which is rewarded at the end of the artificial chase. Aiken Hounds is a hunt club that was established in 1914, and Hitchock Woods is approximately 3000 acres of woodland and open fields that were used to create miles and miles of drag lines. The fences in those days were between four and five feet high - solid rails with brush on both sides so they could be jumped in either direction. The Old Aiken Drag, as it was called then, was conducted at considerable speed and the large fences could be jumped by as many as eight hounds at a time, side by side. Harry Worcester Smith (1865 - 1945) was a second generation American of English descent who lived most of his life in Grafton, Massachusetts on his Lordvale estate, which was destroyed by fire in 1940. (Lordvale is mentioned below Smith's name on the title page.) He was a textile magnate who had over 30 patents on automatic color weaving on gingham, a cotton fabric used on clothes and table clothes, and he made it his mission to promote sports hunting in America. He loved the outdoors and was an avid rider who participated in horse shows and steeplechase races before taking up fox hunting, and he became fanatical about fox hunting. He had two horses which won national horse shows at the old Madison Square Garden and he won numerous local and national steeplechase championships; he bred foxhounds and believed that the American foxhound was superior to the English hound, and so The Great Hound Match of 1905 was held at a hunt club in Virginia between the English foxhounds of A. Henry Higginson's Middlesex Hunt Club and Harry Worcester Smith's American foxhounds of the Grafton Hunt Club. The match was held over several days at the Piedmont Fox Hounds Club, with each pack hunting on alternate days - and nothing was ever decided. No fox had been killed - thankfully, said the fox - and the debate may not have been settled, but you cannot underestimate the impact these two men had on hound breeding and the sport in North America. As a side note, the Piedmont Fox Hounds was established in 1840 and was the oldest fox hunting club in the country - fox hunting existed before 1840, but this was the first organized hunt club in America. Two of Smith's hounds were named Snodgrass and Simon - great names - and on the third day of the hunt, when the hounds crossed Goose Creek, Harry Smith fell off his horse twice and broke his leg - and all this put Virginia on the map as fox hunting country. Smith wrote several books, including this one, and one chapter in the book is titled "Colored People", so for all his pageantry and his graces, Smith was prejudiced and put people in their places - he looked at Black people as negroes and felt they did well as servants and people who waited on you and helped out - and that becomes very clear in Chapter XV of the book. Black people might be respected, but they were not equals. The book is 8vo. and measures 9 3/4 x 6 1/2 in. wide, the binding is tight, with clean pages and text and clean photographs, and the Battered Brigade fold-out is in great condition. But the spine has light browning at the edges and light wear on the crown and more wear on the heel, there's very light rubbing at the tips and the tips are turned in, and there are light stains on the back cover. The inner gutters have a two-inch crack in front and a longer hinge crack at the rear, and the front gutter has light browning going up the center. Still a great find for anyone who loves horse riding in any form, and we could only find six copies of this rare limited edition listed online, all starting at $340. See also Bill McBride's A Pocket Guide to the Identification of First Editions, published in West Hartford, CT. #127 #1598