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CONDITION
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Acceptable minus. Both front and back covers have separated front the body, but a previous owner used transparent tape to re-attach them. The leather spine has pieces that have cracked off, a couple of which are still present and have been inserted inside the front, but is not complete.
Note there is one leaf missing in the book, pages 179-180, and I have supplied facsimile copies of these pages.
Smudges to a few pages, The book is unmarked.
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COMMENTS
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A rare book: fewer than 15 copies are known to survive, most in libraries
This is a fascinating and quite unusual American hunting memoir and early conservation era narrative.
The book is essentially Merritt’s personal account of his life as a professional “market hunter (someone who hunted wild game commercially for sale, a practice now illegal in the U.S.). It is one of the most detailed firsthand records of that now-vanished industry.
The book contains an autobiographical narrative, the author’s entry into market hunting, growth of his hunting business, natural history and observations, detailed descriptions of Midwestern game birds, behavior, habitats, and hunting strategies, technical and reflective sections, evolution and use of firearms, commentary on game laws and conservation, and Merritt’s sometimes controversial opinions about regulation.
The Shadow of a Gun isn’t just a hunting book—it’s a rare, firsthand window into a lost American industry, written by someone deeply embedded in it.
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