These two books are titled "The Sportsman's Cabinet" for short and are first edition dog books from 1803 and 1804. The full title is - take a breath - The Sportsman's Cabinet: A Correct Delineation Of The Various Dogs Used In The Sports Of The Field: Including The Canine Race In General - Consisting Of A Series of Engravings of Every Distinct Breed. From Original Paintings, Taken from Life. Interspersed with beautiful Vignettes , engraved on wood. Illustrated By A Comprehensive, Historical And Systematic Description Of The Different Species, With A Review Of The Various Diseases To Which They Are Subject, And The Most Approved And Efficacious Modes Of Treatment And Cure, To Which Is Added, A Scientific Description Upon the Distemper, Canine Madness, and the Hydrophobia. By A Veteran Sportsman, who was actually William Taplin (1740 - 1807), an English veterinary surgeon. They are early English dog books noted for their exceptional dog illustrations by John Scott, Volume I was published in 1803 and Volume II was published in 1804, and they are first editions, according to WorldCat. Each volume contains a frontispiece - Volume I displays dead game for the frontispiece and the second volume shows a water spaniel at the front; the two volumes have a total of 26 engravings, including the frontispieces, and the first volume has a dedication page, a three-page Introduction, 276 pages of text plus a two-page Index at the end, and Volume II is 310 pages long, with a two-page Index and a List of Engravings in both volumes on the last leaf. They were both printed in London by J. Cundee and sold by T. Hurst of Paternoster-Row, T. Ostell of Ave-Maria-Lane, and Chapple at Pall Mall. The books are 3/4 bound, with horizontal gilt rules and decorative gilt devices on the spines, marbled covers and marbled endpapers, the bookplate of R. Basil Cane on the front paste-downs, and there are chapters on greyhounds, the mastiff, a NewFoundland dog, and a Stag Hound, among others. The books are 4to. and measure 11 3/4 x 9 1/2 in. wide, with tight bindings and clean pages and text; the vignette title pages and the frontispieces have some foxing, there's browning and foxing to some plates, and the remainder of the pages and text are generally very clean, with some light brown spots on just a few pages (ten pages - we counted ), and light offset from the plates. The spines are a little bit faded, with some light vertical wrinkles, rubbing at the crown and along the edge of the spine of the first volume and light rubbing along the spine of Volume II, the front flyleaf in Volume I has some small paper loss in the top right corner, and the corner tips are rubbed, especially on Volume II, and the books are still a classic work on sporting dogs that are rare and hard to come by. #112 #1522