KILLING FOR SPORT: Essays by Various Writers.

First edition, first printing. Publisher's original red card wrappers with titles in black to the upper cover and spine and a declaration of the "Aims and Objects of the Humanitarian League" to the rear. A very good copy, the binding firm with a little minor chipping to the spine and a little wear to the extremities. The contents with scattered foxing to the preliminary pages and the text-block edge are otherwise clean throughout and free from any previous owners' inscriptions or stamps.

A scarce collection of anti-hunting essays edited by the leading vegetarian and animal rights author Henry Stephens Salt, with a preface by his friend, fellow vegetarian and committed opponent to blood-sports, George Bernard Shaw, and including an essay by like-minded socialist thinker, poet and early gay rights activist Edward Carpenter. Published under the auspices of Salt's Humanitarian League, the collection presents itself as the first work to consider both the "humanitarian and economic objections to blood-sports", as well as encompassing a wider range of standpoints than ever before offered. This "war-time" edition in card wrappers forms the true first edition, preceding the hardcover editions of 1915 and 1917. An important pioneering philosophical and practical work by a group of notable author-activists, elucidating the various key objections to blood-sports and aiming to reform both legislation and public opinion.