Simon Latham’s manual, written during the golden age of falconry in England, remains a classic. Latham was trained in the ‘princely art’ by the greatest falconers of the late Elizabethan and early Stuart period. These included his ‘first and loving Master’, Henry Sadler, son of Elizabeth I’s Grand Falconer, Ralph Sadler; the manual’s dedicatee, Thomas Monson, Master of the Hawks to James I and VI; and his own relative, Lewis Latham, Sergeant Falconer to Charles I.

The manual began its life as two treatises. The first, appearing in 1614, focuses on the training of the haggard peregrine, a falcon captured as an adult rather than taken from the nest. The second, published in 1618, discusses the prevention and treatment of disease in hawks. The treatises enjoyed immediate and long-lasting success. The first was reprinted in 1615 and in 1633 it was published with the second in a one-volume edition, reissued in 1658 and 1665. Despite its modest literary qualities, Latham’s work was highly original, drawing on his own experience rather than earlier publications. The practical knowledge it shared guaranteed its enduring popularity.

This volume, combining the individual treatises as published in 1615 and 1618, was in the Royal Library by the early twentieth century.