My Quest for the Arab Horse. DAVENPORT, Homer. SPORT,TRAVEL & EXPLORATION

FIRST EDITION. PRESENTATION COPY WITH AN ORIGINAL SKETCH BY THE AUTHOR. 8vo. (21 x 14 cm). pp.xviii+276. Publisher's original brown cloth with vignette of a man astride horse against a blue background to upper cover, spine lettered in black, edges uncut. With a warm inscription "To the Hon. John Barry, from a ship board friend, Homer Davnport, May 27th 1910" and an accompanying sketch of an Arabian horse's head in profile. 51 engraved illustrations including full-page plates and vignettes in the letterpress. Ex libris Henry Vivian Musgrave-Clark, breeder of Arabian horses and founder of the Arab Horse Society, with his bookplate to front pastedown. Some light rubbing to spine and minor bruising to extremities, Homer Davenport (1867-1912), a native of Oregon, influential political cartoonist, and skilled breeder of horses, travelled to the Syrian desert in 1906 to acquire Arab horses in the purpose of importing them to the United States. A close friend of Theodore Roosevelt (who was the subject of many of Davenport's cartoons), Davenport convinced the president to acquire pure Arab horses so that a Calvary stud could be established. With the help of Bedouins from the Anayzah tribe, Davenport succeeded in acquiring the purest breeds of Arabians after he was given the permit from the Sultan to export the horses from Syria. In this work Davenport gives a detailed account of his journey "to obtain Arab mares and stallions of absolute purity of blood that I could trace as coming from the great Anezeh tribe of Bedouins" (preface). His line of American-born Arabian horses, known as the Davenport Arabians, endures as descendants of the breeding herd he acquired in 1906.