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Book Lovers MUST read!

Hunting
#1

As I’m writing this on New Year’s Eve, just finishing up a truly remarkable book written in 1944 which is a hauntingly beautiful and sobering window into our great-grandparents’ world. If you love the stories of Gordon Grand, Rita Mae Brown, Jan Neuharth, etc. you MUST get yourself a copy of:

Gone Away With O’Malley, by M. O’Malley Knott and Page Cooper, Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1944. Illustrated by Paul Brown (over 75 drawings!) runs the price up a tad, but I checked it out and copies are available right now on Amazon, Abe Books, and other dealers for anywhere between $20 and $80.00 and WORTH EVERY PENNY.

This is a vanished world–the turn of the 20th century when the world still moved by horsepower, and horses were an integral part of everyone’s lives. The book chronicles, through the author’s remarkable life, his boyhood in Ireland, emigrating to the US on a sailing ship, attending the first veterinary college in NYC and going on to become one of the East Coast’s foremost horse dealers and developers of a number of hunts in NJ, Millbrook, NY, Greenwich, CT and more.

Stories of hunters, driving horses, dogs and hounds, the quirky and sometimes dramatic people who managed them, and a fascinating glimpse into the living conditions, medical knowledge, mores, and sporting life of the times.

ANYONE who loves hunting, good horses, the quest for the “bad actor you can fix” or adventure with horse and hound in general cannot fail to adore this book. This is my last post of 2014, my New Year’s gift to COTH. Find it, buy it, read it, treasure it!

Enjoy . . . and appreciate all we have today. As someone famous locally once said, “Take from the altars of the past the FIRE; not the ashes.”

Hark Forrard! :cool:

#2

I have owned this book for years and never read it, I bought it for the Paul Brown illustrations. I just took it off the bookshelf on your recommendation and plan to start reading it tonight!

#3

Ha! Sent Lady E’s post on to my book sleuth.

#4

Just ordered it. Sounds great & thanks for the recommendation :slight_smile:

#5

[QUOTE=BAC;7935227]
I have owned this book for years and never read it, I bought it for the Paul Brown illustrations. I just took it off the bookshelf on your recommendation and plan to start reading it tonight![/QUOTE]

Ha! Would you believe I did the same? :lol: Purchased it in a lot of Paul Brown’s around 25 years ago, it’s sat on my shelf all this time and the other night was looking for something horsey to ring in the New Year, and couldn’t put it down until I’d finished it. I’m trying to figure out whom among the Millbrook lights was the real-life “Col. Weatherford” of Gordon Grand’s novels; though I believe he said that character was a composite.

Anyway, Millbrook, Rombout, Greenwich, any number of hunts in NJ and PA–they’re ALL here, and hoss-dealin’ tales to boot! The more things change, the more they stay the same–prices then and now are particularly fascinating, as is the veterinary part.

#6

Oooh, this sounds really good, off to see if I can find it on Amazon.

#7

Put me on the list of people who bought it for the PB illustrations then read it later. And one of the chapters is in the Page Cooper short stories collection that was my childhood favorite. The Red Terror I think? I bought a lot of books because of the excerpts in that collection.

There is another good author for those of us who thrive on this genre. J.Stanley Reeve. You can find some of his on Google downloads.

And more fun for a winter day:

Ad for O’Malley’s sale horses I clipped from a 1910 magazine. Likely Bit and Spur? it was a Google download http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/originals/e1/ff/dd/e1ffdd02159bb917f742a1bef6bcfa3c.jpg

photo of Gordon Grand and his wife http://themillbrookindependent.com/featured/discovering-book-collection

#8

Just ordered it from Amazon. Abe’s have one for slightly less, but I had a gift card for Amazon. Merry Christmas to me! Hope I like it.

#9

I’ll try to find it. It’s crazy expensive used on Amazon.

#10

Just the other day I was thinking about Paul Brown and wishing I had editions of my favorite horse books all illustrated by him. I also love C.W. Anderson and Angie Draper and Sam Savitt and Wesley Dennis, but Paul Brown is my favorite horse-book illustrator.

I will look for a copy of this book, hopefully closer to the $20 mark than the $80! Thanks for posting about it. It sounds wonderful.

#11

[QUOTE=SmartAlex;7936080]
Put me on the list of people who bought it for the PB illustrations then read it later. And one of the chapters is in the Page Cooper short stories collection that was my childhood favorite. The Red Terror I think? I bought a lot of books because of the excerpts in that collection.

There is another good author for those of us who thrive on this genre. J.Stanley Reeve. You can find some of his on Google downloads.

And more fun for a winter day:

Ad for O’Malley’s sale horses I clipped from a 1910 magazine. Likely Bit and Spur? it was a Google download http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/originals/e1/ff/dd/e1ffdd02159bb917f742a1bef6bcfa3c.jpg

photo of Gordon Grand and his wife http://themillbrookindependent.com/featured/discovering-book-collection[/QUOTE]

SUPER links! Many thanks! :cool:

#12

I got out my O’Malley book, and found this tucked into it. Tracked it down pretty quick, it was from The Hunts of the United States and Canada: Their Masters, Hounds and Histories on Google download

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/originals/24/ff/33/24ff33aa3957f655ac3d5817ef7f60bc.jpg

#13

I’ll bet he’d think it was mighty cool, all of us in the Internet age unimaginable back then, discussing Dr. M. O’Malley Knott! :slight_smile:

One thing’s for sure–he was a HORSEMAN, and everyone who was lucky enough to have the experience of growing up at the feet of people like him, who got to experience the tail-end of the years of the working horse, I believe have a grounding perspective that is increasingly lacking in a product-driven, hyper-emotional, therapeuticalized world.

NO DOUBT in my mind it’s a better world for horses today; but where the “perspective” comes in is a quote from my first teacher, born into a horsey family in 1912: “It costs just as much to keep a BAD horse as a GOOD one!” And he defined a “bad” one as the one that wasn’t suitable for what you wanted to do.

I think Kenny Rogers said it best in a song: “There’s someone for everyone.” No need to stay “married” to a horse who isn’t working for you. One woman’s headache is another’s treasure, and the Art of the Deal is to make the correct match. This is what people like Knott, Margaret Cabell Self, Emerson Burr, and his cousin Nathan Banks were so brilliant at doing–putting the right rider on the right horse for the right discipline.

I admit to being afflicted for most of my adult life with Knott’s conviction that I could “fix” most of the “bad actors” out there, since I grew up doing just that for Nate. Got over it fortunately before my 40th birthday, which is probably the only reason I’m still in one piece to write this in 2015. :wink:

#14

I’ll bet he’d think it was mighty cool, all of us in the Internet age unimaginable back then, discussing Dr. M. O’Malley Knott! :slight_smile:

One thing’s for sure–he was a HORSEMAN, and everyone who was lucky enough to have the experience of growing up at the feet of people like him, who got to experience the tail-end of the years of the working horse, I believe have a grounding perspective that is increasingly lacking in a product-driven, hyper-“therapy”-ized world.

NO DOUBT in my mind it’s a better world for horses today; but where the “perspective” comes in is a quote from my first teacher, born into a horsey family in 1912: “It costs just as much to keep a BAD horse as a GOOD one!” And he defined a “bad” one as the one that wasn’t suitable for what you wanted to do.

I think Kenny Rogers said it best in a song: “There’s someone for everyone.” No need to stay “married” to a horse who isn’t working for you. One woman’s headache is another’s treasure, and the Art of the Deal is to make the correct match. :winkgrin:

#15

[QUOTE=Wellspotted;7936358]
Just the other day I was thinking about Paul Brown and wishing I had editions of my favorite horse books all illustrated by him. I also love C.W. Anderson and Angie Draper and Sam Savitt and Wesley Dennis, but Paul Brown is my favorite horse-book illustrator.

I will look for a copy of this book, hopefully closer to the $20 mark than the $80! Thanks for posting about it. It sounds wonderful.[/QUOTE]

never heard of Angie Draper but I have many books illustrated by the others you mention, bought just for the illustrations. One day I was walking down Madison Avenue and there in the window display of Brooks Bros were a number of original Paul Brown drawings. I went inside to get a better look and ask if they were for sale (no) and was told that PB used to give his drawings away to many of the staff. The drawings were awesome of course, some were of polo ponies but the rest were Hunter type scenes.

#16

Interesting that Dr. Knott was involved in developing a diphtheria anti-toxin extracted from horses. Thanks for the heads up on this fine looking book.

#17

A quote from “Tales of an Old Horse Trader: The First Hundred Years” by Leroy Judson Daniels (b. 1882)

“Fact of the matter is that in some ways buying a horse is like buying a suit of clothes, the one that is right for one man is not right for another. Doesn’t make any difference what someone else wants, or thinks you want, you and that horse will belong together for a long time, and if you don’t like him or he doesn’t like you, then it’s no good.”

Obviously, successful horse traders knew the recipe way back then.

#18

Great thread from over a year ago. Once upon a time, I was a used horse book dealer, and I am still a Paul Brown fanatic. Gone Away With O’Malley ranks (with the Col Weatherford books, of course) as one of my favorites. (I will admit, Pamela and the Blue Mare still comes out on top.)

Anyway, a couple of years before Mom died (she was almost 96 when she died in 2001), she mentioned that her father (an avid horseman and foxhunter from the early days of the 20th century) had been stationed at Plattsburgh (WWI). I remembered reading that Paul Brown had been at Plattsburgh wich was when he became interested in drawing horses, foxhunting, etc, etc… Now, I can’t prove that my grandfather was PB’s link to the horse world from up there on that cold Adirondack cavalry base… but my grandfather was also a writer/editor and his Plattsburgh Army base newsletter was one of the Brown first forays into magazine illustration… And, he was a friend/neighbor of Charles Scribner - who became PB’s friend and first publisher…

On top of that, the foxhunting world was much, much smaller than it is now (and it remains pretty small!!), so…

What really floored me was when Mom would tell stories that her father used to tell her… then I would read these/similar stories in O’Malley and Grand - all published after he died… :wink:

Probably just my wishful thinking, however.:winkgrin:

#19

I remember this thread from last year. I tracked down a copy and read the book. As much as I enjoyed reading about foxhunting and horse-trading, etc. from days gone by, what still haunts me about this book is how poorly he treated his dog and how that ended.

#20

Saw this thread, ordered it, read it , loved it! Willing to swap/lend, any other suggestions for good reads?

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