Description

8°, [4] title and index, , 336 pp., 35 full page black and white illustrations, contemporary calf with gilt lettering on the cover and spine, original patterned endpapers (binding lightly scratched, battered on the corners with some loss of leather on the spine, paper with light foxing, small folds and chips on the edges, three sheets loose, otherwise in a good used condition).

An Ottoman translation of the French work on riding Principes de dressage et d’équitation, by an esteemed riding master James Fillis (1834-1913) was published in Istanbul in 1902. The book introduces riding skills from the basics to the highly demanding dressage and military skills. The original illustrations were replaced with images of Ottoman riders.

In the late Ottoman Empire the sultan tried to modernise the cavalry in order to adjust it to the contemporary military strategies and needs, one of the plans being introducing the European riding methods and training of the horses and riders.

The work was printed by one of the largest printing presses in the Ottoman Empire, owned by an Armenian Artin Asaduryan, who arrived to Istanbul in 1880s, where he took over an older press and later renamed it to Artin Asaduryan ve Mahdumları Matbaası. The press was printing books, posters, theatre playbills, schoolbooks and newspapers in eight different languages with approximately 36 titles per year.