"THE CURIOUS CENTRAL ECSTASY [OF GOLF] HAS NEVER BEEN MORE THOUGHTFULLY ADDRESSED THAN IN THE MYSTERY OF GOLF" (JOHN UPDIKE)

HAULTAIN, Arnold. The Mystery of Golf: A briefe Account of Games in generall: their Origine; Antiquitie; & Rampancie; and of the game ycleped Golfe in particular: its Uniqueness; its Curiousness; & its Difficultie; its anatomical, philosophicall, and moral Properties; together with diverse Conceipts on other Matters to it appertaining. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1908. Octavo, original half green cloth, uncut. $2400.

Limited first edition, number 229 of only 440 copies of this classic meditation on golf in all its aspects, the volume designed by famed typographer Bruce Rogers, "the most accomplished book designer that America has yet produced" (Lawson, Anatomy of a Typeface, 62).

"In what does the secret of golf lie? Not in one thing; but in many. And in many so mysteriously conjoined, so incomprehensibly interwoven, as to baffle analysis. The mind plays as large a part as the muscles; and perhaps the moral nature as large a part as the mind—though this would carry us into regions deeper even than these depths of psychology. Suffice it to say that all golfers know that golf must be played seriously, earnestly; as seriously, as earnestly, as life." Donovan & Murdoch 20420.

Fine condition.