J. Stanley Reeve's Recollections

In the past few months I've read Risk in the Afternoon by William Prickett and The Lady Blows a Horn (about Nancy Penn Smith Hannum) by Nancy L. Mohr. The first is a memoir and the second is a biography. Both of them are set in Chester County, Pennsylvania and primarily cover events surrounding the Cheshire Hunt.

I have just finished reading Further Fox-Hunting Recollections by J. Stanley Reeve. It's essentially a hunting diary featuring the Cheshire Hunt. The foreword is by W. Plunket Stewart. I believe this is the third volume (note that it's Further Recollections -- the full title is Further Fox-Hunting Recollections, Including the Great Lenape Run together with other notes and entries from the Journal (1928-1935) of J. Stanley Reeve). I have not read any of his other books but I believe that his hunting recollections begin with the Radnor Hunt and then move to the Cheshire.

I have tried to read this book in the past and haven't gotten very far. It went better this time since I've gained some familiarity with the history and the characters. Also, I am somewhat familiar with the area around Unionville, Pennsylvania. I can't imagine reading this book otherwise. That's too bad because there are a few interesting short pieces scattered throughout the book.

It's an interesting time period. And it's an interesting cast of characters although they are only listed as having been hunting on a particular day. There's no discussion of these people at all. It can still be interesting. There are members of the Stewart family. There are various people named Reeve but it's difficult to tell if they're all related. There are Wanamakers.

And here is a bit of a digression. Wanamaker's was a grand department store in Philadelphia. There are great pictures of the store but little text at The Department Store Museum. It mentions the eagle in the great hall -- this was a huge statue and people frequently planned to meet at the eagle. It was a very beautiful store, very impressive, and they did amazing decorations for Christmas including animated figures in the windows. (What can I say? I visited as a college student in the late 1970s.) You can Google Wanamakers but the results weren't very satisfactory. There was another big department store in Philadelphia called Strawbridge & Clothier. Indeed, there were Strawbridges who hunted fairly regularly and someone from the Clothier family hunted occasionally. Yes, really. I assumed Clothier referred to the store selling clothing but there was a family named Clothier.

All of that made this book more interesting to me than it would probably be to most people. I'm not sure it would be appealing to most book clubs. The book is definitely a product of its time and place and there are moments of minor historical interest but it surely represents a completely different world from mine.

Reading Group Schedule

Discussion in
May: Some Experiences of an Irish RM by Somerville & Ross
June: A Long Way to Go by Marigold Armitage
June: Chapter 5, Attributes of a Good Hound from Hounds and Hunting Through the Ages by Joseph B. Thomas
July: The Great Hound Match of 1905 by Martha Wolfe
August: The Fox in the Cupboard by Jane Shilling
September: Risk in the Afternoon by William Prickett
September: Red Coats Galloping by John Welcome
October: The Lady Blows a Horn by Nancy L. Mohr (biography of Nancy Penn Smith Hannum)
November: The Millbeck Hounds: A Collection of Hunting Stories by Gordon Grand
November: Chapter 6, Comments on Hunting a Pack from Hounds and Hunting Through the Ages by Joseph B. Thomas
December: A Horse for Christmas Morning by Gordon Grand
January:  Mr. Merston's Hounds by John Welcome
February: Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man by Siegfried Sassoon
March:  The Old Man Hunts
April:  Letters to a Young Huntsman by Andrew Barclay
May:  Foxhunters Speak by Mary Motley Kalergis
June:  Foxhunting Adventures by Norman Fine
July:  Foxhunting in North America by Alexander Mackay-Smith
August:  Gallops by David Gray
September:  The Fox by Lionel Edwards
October:  Ronnie Wallace: A Manual of Foxhunting by Michael Clayton
November:  American Foxhunting: An Anthology by Alexander Mackay-Smith

Future possibilities
Fiction
The High Mettled Racer Being The Story Of "Revenge" Racehorse And Hunter by Ernest Lewis
The Prophet of Paradise by J. Harris Anderson

Further Experiences of an Irish RM by Somerville & Ross (ebook versions)
In Mr. Knox's Country by Somerville & Ross (ebook versions)
Gallops by David Gray (ebook versions)
Gallops 2 by David Gray (ebook versions)
Mr. Carteret and Others by David Gray (ebook versions)
There Goes Charlie by Anne Fleming
A Portion for Foxes by Jane McIlvaine McClary
Surtees (perhaps one chapter per month to accompany nonfiction main selection)

Memoirs

My Privileged Life by Thady Ryan

Nonfiction (both of these perhaps as one chapter per month)
Foxhunting in North American by Alexander Mackay-Smith
Fox hunting by the Duke of Beaufort


You may want to compare this to our original proposed reading list or the other proposed reading list.

Booksellers

AddAll

Amazon

AbeBooks

Alibris

BetterWorld Books

eBay

Not a bookseller but useful for plot summaries:  Goodreads

Siegfried Sassoon

From British and American Sporting Authors, Siegfried Sassoon (1886 - )

Siegfried Sassoon was born in 1886, and has been identified with the literary set since his early youth.  His first publication dealing with sport was a book of verses entitled The Old Huntsman, published in 1917.  But the book which has particularly identified him among the sporting authors of his time is Memoirs of A Foxhunting Man, published in 1928, which ran into several editions, and was perhaps the most talked-of book of its kind, at the time.  Since then, although Mr. Sassoon has not written anything about hunting, he has, nevertheless, written reviews of many hunting books, which have been published in the daily press.

Somerville and Ross

From British and American Sporting Authors, Edith Oenone Somerville (1858 - ) and Violet Martin ("Martin Ross") (1862-1915)

Irish sportsmen may well be proud of Miss Edith Oenone Somerville who, for some time, not only held the unique position of Lady Master of Fox Hounds, but was also a talented writer on Irish life and sport.  Miss Somerville is the daughter of the late Lieutenant Colonel Somerville, D. L., of Drishane, Skibbereen, County Cork, and Adelaide, daughter of admiral Sir Josiah Coghill, Bart.  Miss Somerville studied art in the studios of Colarossi and Delecluse, in Paris, and at The Royal Westminster School of Art in London.  Beginning to ride at the atge of five, she was blooded to the West Carbury by her grandfather, an old Master of the Hunt, and since that time, she has hunted whenever she could, with The Meath and The United, in Ireland, and with The Quorn, cottesmore, Mr. Fernie's and The North Shropshire in England.
In 1905, she succeeded her brother, Mr. Aylmer Somerville, who had revived The West Carbury Foxhounds in 1891 and, purchasing the pack from the committee, carried on hunting in an extremely efficient manner, unti the end of the season of 1908-1909, when he found it necessary to resign.
Miss Somerville is as well known in literary circles as in the hunting field, and her works, written for the most part in collaboration with her talented cousin, the late Miss Violet Martin (who wrote under the nom-de-plume of "Martin Ross,") are well known on both sides of the Atlantic, as is evidenced by the fact that she holds a degree of Doctor of Letters from Trinity College, Dublin; and was forced by travel difficulties to decline a similar honor proffered to her by Yale University.  In company with W. B. Yeats and George Bernard Shaw, she holds The Gregory Medal, the principal literary honour of being the only living author taken into the Oxford Classics.  One of her recent books, The States Through Irish Eyes, was published by Houghton Mifflin & Company of Boston, and it was written and illustrated by the author herself shortly after a visit to America, where she had a chance to see for herself the differences which exist in the Eastern and Western hemispheres.

Miss Violet Martin, who, as mentioned above, collaborated with Miss Somerville in many of her most successful books, was the youngest daughter of the late Mr. James Martin, D.L., of County Galway.  Miss Martin was a keen horsewoman, a great lover of hounds, and spent much of her time, since 1886, at Drishane, hunting with The West Carbury, and writing in collaboration with her cousin.

Joseph B. Thomas

From British and American Sporting Authors, Joseph B. Thomas (1879 - )

Joseph B. Thomas prepared for College at The Berkeley School in New York City, and from there went to Yale University, from which he graduated in 1903, to enter the family business, shortly becoming President and Director of several corporations.  He was a member of the Connecticut House of Representatives, and was active during the First World War, and the rehabilitation of France, furnishing a large number of dairy cattle to the French Government to restock the devastated areas.
He was also honoured by the King of Spain, and decorated with The Order of the Crown of Italy.  Mr. Thomas has always been active in sports.  He was a yachtsman of note, and also a five-goal polo player in America; but it is with reference to his activity in the hunting field with which we have to deal.  He was early intereested in the importation of Russian Wolfhounds, or Borzoi, as they are termed, and in furtherance of his interest in the breed, he visited Russia, where he was allowed access to the kennels of the nobility -- particularly of the Grand Dukes -- and made an exhaustive study of wolf-hunting in the land of the Slavs.  Having written a book about his experiences, he called it Observations on Borzoi.
Quite naturally, he became interested in foxhunting, and has probably done more for the standardization of the American Foxhound than anyone; having made a thorough study of the taproots of the breed and also visited the principal packs in England and Wales, in order to ascertain the methods of foxhunting which are practised in the land of its birth.  His experiments in cross-breeding have been exhaustive, though he is of the opinion that the American Foxhound is not benefitted by an infusion of either British or Welsh blood.  His book, Hounds and Hunting Through The Ages, is without doubt one of the most exhaustive works on foxhunting that has ever been written, and will undoubtedly remain a textbook in the years to come.

Harry Worcester Smith

From British and American Sporting Authors, Harry Worcester Smith (1865-1945)

Harry Worcester Smith was born on 5th November, 1865, at Worcester, Massachusetts, U.S.A.  He was educated at The Polytechnic Institute of Worcester; at The Boston Institute of Technology; and later studied at The Chemnitz Weaving School, in Germany; at The Glasgow School of Design and at Bradford Technical College.  On returning to the United States, he entered his father's textile factory at Worcester, and, while there, invented a standard automatic color loom, one of his many patents connected with weaving machinery.  On his father's death, he took over the works which the former had started and consolidated the three largest loom manufacturing works into a single plant for making weaving machines.  For a long time, too, he had a controlling interest in The Thomas G. Plant Shoe Manufacturing Company, but sold the factories, machines, and his patents, to The United Shoe Machinery Company, for half a million pounds, retired, to spend his time in foxhunting.
Always a keen hunting man and a staunch supporter of the American Foxhun, he at one time participated in a match with the imported English Hounds of The Middlesex Hunt in America, winning the award after a tial which lasted two weeks, each pack taking the field alternately.  Although he was prominent in racing circles -- he won the American Grand National, riding his own horse, "The Cae", in 1901 -- I think his name will be best known in years to come, for the service he did to foxhunting, in founding The Masters of Fox Hounds Association of America.  This organization which has perhaps done more for the furtherance of sport in the Western Hemisphere than is realized in Great Britain today, was founded by a number of prominent American hunting men, under a constitution adapted to American conditions by Mr. Smith, along hte lines of the similar organization extant in England today.
Harry Smith's career as a Master of Hounds began in 1904, when he became very mjuch interestedin the American type of foxhound, and established a pack of his own, at Grafton, Massachusetts.  In 1912, Mr. Smith took over the Mastership of The Westmeath country in Ireland, hunting a part of that country with his own pack of American Hounds, which he took with him, and on other days hunting with the Westmeath pack, whcih were hunted by Arthur Pollok, who came in with him as Joint Master.  I have been told that the American Hounds, which hunted well in their own country, under conditions which called for great initiative, independence, low-scenting qualities, and cry, were not suited to the Westmeath country, where they were at a considerable disadvantage.  The story of that expedition and of the writer's experience in the hunting fields of Great Britain, is delightfully told in his book, A Sporting Tour Though Ireland, England, Wales and France.
Mr. Smith died at his home, "Lordvale", near Grafton Massachusetts on 5th April, 1945.

Alexander Henry Higginson

From British and American Sporting Authors, Alexander Henry Higginson (1876 - )

Alexander Henry Higginson was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in April, 1876.  Perhaps the Foreward, written ten years ago by the late Henry Goodwin Vaughan -- for seven years the President of the Masters of Fox Hounds Association of America -- to Mr. Higginson's book, Try Back, tells the story of his career as simply as any, and I am quoting from it as follows:
"Try Back is a delightfully illustrative name for Mr. Higginson's reminiscences.  They are the story of a man who has exemplified in this great sport of fox hunting, the American axiom used commonly in connection with great business success -- that 'ours is the land of opportunity.'  For, Mr. Higginson has today attained the highest place in the sport he loves, that of holding the position of Master and Huntsman, as well in a long-established English Hunt -- The Cattistock -- for nine seasons.  This achievement is all the greater in that Mr. Higginson does not come of a foxhunting line; though the Higginsons were ever foremost in whatever they set their hands to do.  Major Henry Lee Higginson, the author's father, was called 'The First Citizen of Boston' when he died.
"The reader of Try Back cannot help but be impressed by the truth which stands out, after a perusal of the pages of this book, that they portray the story of a man who made good; and who, with no previous training or tradition in hunting, by his own application and ability, became our greatest American Master of Hounds, and one of our leading sportsmen, having filled high positions in the sporting world, with benefit to the sport and distinction to himself.  There is not another man among us today who has seen what he has of the hunting world, and has had, at the same time, the wit and intelligence and possessed the 'eye' to learn and profit therefrom; so that he is not only our foremost American Master, but also a great breeder, with a knowledge of hounds, second to none.  The greatest ambition of any Master is both to breed and hunt his own pack -- an ambition which Mr. Higginson has attained with great sucess, making it the premier pack of American, and maintaining it for yearrs, until he sold it, when he went to England.
"Since I first hunted with The Middlesex Hounds in 1900, I have seen more and more of Alex Higginson, and we have worked side by side in our endeavour to helpfully guide and regulate hunting, and sport in general; this has been especially so during the seventeen years during which he was President of The Masters of Fox Hounds Association of America, and I was its Secretary.  This intimate knowledge of him enables me to say that he, as author, ahs written accurately, restrainedly, and moestly, and we may well be proud to consider ourselves fortunate to have such a fellow-countryman Master of a Hunt in England -- The Motherland of Foxhunting!"

Gordon Grand

From British and American Sporting Authors, Gordon Grand (1883 - )

Gordon Grand was born on 20th June, 1883, and had his first day with hounds in October, 1891, astride a small pony.  He was lucky, for hounds accounted for their fox on that day, and he was given a pad by the Master, with the remark: "My boy, this pad is not a reward -- far from it.  It is a bribe.  I'm bribing you to keep your pony where it belongs in the Field, and not to pretend that you can't hold him!"
From that day to this -- a span of fifty-six years -- he has followed the sport, and is at present hunting with The Millbrook Hounds, of which he was one of the incorporators and is now filling the office of President.  Mr. Grand's first experience in the hunting field was with The Essex Hounds (New Jersey, U.S.A.), as far back as the days when that pack was under the able Mastership of Charles Pfizer, who was well-known asone of the early exponents of the sport in New Jersey.  Presently, Mr. and Mrs. Grand -- they were married in 1909 -- moved into Connecticut and, during the time that he was there, he hunted with The Fairfield and Westchester Hounds, which were kennelled near Greenwich.  His first book, The Silver Horn, was written during a prolonged illness, as a form of relaxation during the convalescent period, but when it was published, by Eugene V. Connett, owner of The Derrydale Press, it was such a great success that, in spite of the fact that Mr. Grand had no disposition to continue writing, he was persuaded by Mr. Connett to give the sporting world several more charming stories, which have all of them been most successful.  "When Mr. Connett retired," writes Mr. grand, "I put my pen away, and employed the spare time formerly given over to writing, to gardening, raising a colt or two on my farm, foxhunting and business interests."
While Mr. Grand's books are, in no sense of the word, technical studies of foxhunting or its many ramifications, they are written with great charm, and the characters which he has brought into being -- particularly that of "Colonel John Weatherford", are very real types to be found in the hunting fields of America.

From the Foreward of A Horse for Christmas Morning and Other Stories (1970), written by Gordon Grand, Jr.

These four little sporting tales are unique.  For this reason something of their background and of the author will perhaps add to your understanding and enjoyment of them.
During his lifetime my father gained a reputation as one of the foremost writers of American sporting fiction, particularly stories of horses, riding and fox hunting.  Frankly, this recognition was a surprise to him for he was not a professional writer.  He was a lawyer and businessman and wrote simply for the pleasure it gave him and the enjoyment his stories gave to others.  But he wrote of a world he knew intimately from boyhood and enjoyed so much.
His series of five books of short stories began with "The Silver Horn" published in 1932 and ended with "The Southborough Fox" in 1939.  They were published in limited editions only and have been out of print for many years.  The last popular edition of a collection of his stories (The Millbeck Hounds) was published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1947.   Over the years, and continuing today, his stories have appeared in anthologies of sporting literature -- and in anthologies of American humor, too.  They can be found alopng with such entertaining pieces as "Lost" with the memorable Mr. Jorrocks by R. S. Surtees; "Philippa's Fox Hunt," by Somerville and Ross; "The First Day," from Sassoon's Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man; "The Man Who Hunts and Never Jumps," by Anthony Trollope; "Squire Weston in Pursuit" from Fielding's Tom Jones, and others.
The four stories in this book were written by Father in the decade of the 40's -- one every two years or so apart -- and were never published; nor did he intend them to be published.  They were privately printed in editions of less than 100 each and sent by him as Christmas books to the new generation of "young entry" riders and fox hunters among his close friends and neighbors.  Each grandchild always received a copy with the gentle suggestion to the parent that the story  be read aloud, which Father did for us when we were growing up.
Father was also a constant and generous letter writer to his family.  It was natural, therefore, in "A Horse for Christmas Morning" that he used an exchange of letters to unfold his story.
Colonel Weatherford, Arthur Pendleton (the Colonel's neighbor), young John Weatherford (the Colonel's nephew), Judge Culpepper of Virginia, and Eddie Walsh (expert horseman and Colonel Weatherford's flamboyant groom), all of whom appear in these stories, were the characters in many of his published works.  They were composites of people we know, particularly Colonel Weatherford and Eddie Walsh.  The setting was Millbrook, New York, where we as a family lived and hunted for many years.
Father's contribution to the sporting world, particularly riding and fox hunting, ws not only to its literature but to the development and encouragement of the sport as well.  His stories had this purpose, too.  He reminded us that those who are privileged to participate have an obligation to devote tie and effort to preserve the sport for others to enjoy.  For this reason, when family and business affairs permitted, he gave generously of his time and effort.  He -- and mother, too, for she was a bold and expert horsewoman -- during their lifetime judged many horse shows, including the National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden.
If these tales bring enjoyment, and hopefully a little laughter, they will have served their purpose well.  Perhaps they will encourage a "young entry" of today to be "way forrard with hounds -- a day's furrow forrard," as I know they did some years ago.
My sister, Mrs. Edwin Thorne, who also gave her permission to have these stories published, joins me in the forward.  The line between sentiment and sentimentality is thin at best, and this is particularly true for both of us in connection with these stories which bring back so many happy memories.

Gordon Grand's books are:
The Silver Horn
Colonel Weatherford and His Friends
Old Man
Young Entry
The Southborough Fox 

The first four books were reprinted by Derrydale as a set.  Selected stories were collected and published in a volume entitled, The Millbeck Hounds:  A Collection of Hunting Stories.  As mentioned in the forward quoted above, A Horse for Christmas Morning and Other Stories was published posthumously.  The other three stories in that volume are:  Mr. Nip and Mr. Tuck; Faith, Perfect Faith; and Mr. Henry P. Throckmorton.

David Gray

From British and American Sporting Authors, David Gray (1870 - )

David Gray, United States Minister to Eire for some years, was born and brought up in the United States. Graduating from Harvard University in 1892, he took up journalism, writing several charming hunting stories, which were afterwards published collectively, under the title of Gallops.  At this time, Mr. Gray was living in the Genesee Valley country, and hunting with Major Wadsworth's hounds, and some of the characters bore an unmistakable resemblance to the members of the Genesee Valley Hunt field. Gallops was an instant success, and was followed, a few years later, by another volume, which he called Gallops II, and, after a further interval by Mr. Carteret and Others.

I well remember the popularity of the stories when they first came out. People who did not know Mr. Gray asked who he was, where he hunted, and where he had acquired the knowledge and experience in America which made it possible for him to bring to his stories such an intimate atmosphere of the hunting field. When I heard from friends that he had hunted behind Major Wadsworth's Hounds, in The Genesee Valley, I realized at once from whence it had come. Although Mr. Gray's stories in Gallops and Gallops II are typical of American hunting, or or two of them contain characters which are so typically British that it is easy to see that the writer also had had experience in the hunting fields of England, and this is even more apparent in the third volume of hunting stories, Mr. Carteret and Others, which came out a few years later. I have often wondered why Mr. Gray did not indulge in further "Gallops." They may not have been, in one sense of the word, great literature, but, to my way of thinking, they gave the best picture of the American hunting field that had been produced up to that time, and were later dramatized in the play which, under the title of "Gallops," had a most successful run in New York.

Risk in the Afternoon

I'm just sticking this here for now. This is from my summary of the reading group meeting.

I think there was pretty general agreement about Risk in the Afternoon by William Prickett. It’s essentially a memoir. For many of us there were familiar names and locations and that’s always enjoyable. While admiring his enthusiasm for our favorite sport, most of us felt the author wasn’t as knowledgeable as he should be. Memoirs tend to be self-aggrandizing but most of us felt this was carried to an extreme. The overall evaluation is probably something like this: while interesting to foxhunters familiar with southeastern Pennsylvania, this book can’t be recommended for those foxhunters looking for book club selections. It wasn’t horrible but there are better things to read. Risk in the Afternoon was an interesting follow-up to The Fox in the Cupboard by Jane Shilling, another modern memoir of a foxhunter. The contrast is pretty striking. And our next book selection has ties to these. We’ll be reading The Lady Blows a Horn by Nancy L. Mohr which centers on a MFH from the same hunt where most of Risk in the Afternoon takes place. Something about this book: “This is the story of a lady master of foxhounds, Nancy Penn Smith Hannum, whose horn has echoed through the Cheshire hunt country for over fifty years -- a legend in her own time. Decades of adventures with family, friends, and the hunt are interwoven with this strong-willed woman's passion for preserving the beautiful open country of southern Chester County, Pennsylvania. Here, too, are photographs from the times of her life, her wisdom about breeding and training hounds -- all gathered under one cover by a writer who shares her commitment to open space and farmland preservation.”

The Lady Blows a Horn

My summary from our meeting:

We discussed The Lady Blows a Horn, a biography of Nancy Penn Smith Hannum by Nancy L. Mohr. I think the general opinion was that Mrs. Hannum did a lot to keep land open for hunting, and many people admired her for that, but she didn't seem to be a particularly nice person. She certainly angered some landowners by her actions.

My opinion:

Whether you liked the woman or not, the book was not well organized. Because it was written while Mrs. Hannum was alive, it may have been necessary to keep her remarks intact but it jumped around considerably. It was sometimes difficult to identify exactly who said (or wrote) what.  And I think she comes across as callous and uncaring -- not what the author intended, I'm sure.

One opinion:

What a dynamo that little lady is!! I was especially impressed with her land conservation in a terribly difficult, over populated corridor of our country. Loved the state police arrest story...what a character- clearly one of those folks you either liked or didn't, a very strong personality.

And a remark from someone who followed Cheshire:

I have been meaning to read ‘The Lady…’ for a long time. I have very fond memories of following Mrs. Hannum in her old Jeep Wagoneer. She was an amazing lady, always very friendly and very gracious.

There are some other people in our reading group who met Mrs. Hannum and knew her slightly. They couldn't be at the meeting but it will be interesting to get their comments at some point.

Comparison, Short Story Collections

I think a comparison would be appropriate between the following story collections.

Somerville & Ross

Some Experiences of an Irish RM (Longmans, Green & Co., London, 1899)
Further Experiences of an Irish RM (Longmans Green & Co., London, 1908)
In Mr Knox's Country (Longmans Green & Co., London, 1915)

David Gray

Gallops (Century Co., New York, 1898)
Gallops II (Century Co., New York, 1903)
Mr. Carteret and Others (Century Co., New York, 1910)

Gordon Grand

Colonel Weatherford and His Friends (1933)
Old man and other Colonel Weatherford stories (1934)
The Silver Horn (1937)
Young Entry
The Southborough Fox

Isn't it interesting that Somerville & Ross were writing at the same time as David Gray?  The stories by Somerville & Ross were originally published in magazines.  This is probably also true of Gray's pieces.  There are strong similarities between the stories but marked differences.
The main character in the Somerville & Ross stories is a man who leaves the military (with the rank of major) in order to marry.  Their social status is somewhat nebulous -- clearly upper class but not wealthy and not aristocracy.  They are English but he is posted to Ireland as a Resident Magistrate (essentially a judge).  While he laments all of his expenses, he manages to keep a family, a large house, a few servants, a couple of horses, and he foxhunts and shoots.  At the time of the stories, Ireland is only one generation removed from the potato famine and extreme poverty is the norm.  Many Irish and Anglo-Irish characters appear and they are almost uniformly destitute.
The David Gray stories are American.  While the cast of characters is larger, they are all of one class.  Since it's America, that's the wealthy class.  They make no bones about it.  Much is said about various characters not needing to work.  In many instances they call to the stables from the house.  All of the women seem to ride sidesaddle and automobiles are not mentioned until the last book.  Every manner of horse-drawn vehicle is mentioned including street cars.  The fictitious town used as a setting is Oakdale.  Everyone who works, or keeps an office, does so in New York.  They seem to only be twenty or thirty miles from the city which is interesting.  The last book sees a few of the American characters spending the hunting season in England.
The contrast is rather startling but the stories are very similar.  There is horse dealing in all its various shades.  There are practical jokes and all kinds of wagers.  There are feats of derring-do (and foolishness) on horseback and in harness.  There are romance, honor, sentiment, and pathos.
The Gordon Grand stories are yet another flavor of the same thing.  It's been awhile since I read these but the books are solidly American.  The cast of characters crosses more classes.  They are more strongly paternalistic, I think.  And they are markedly more modern.  The stories flow differently.  I need to reread these and think about it.  I do not think that many of them (if any) were published in magazines prior to coming out as books.  Grand wrote quite a few other books including a biography of Redmond Stewart, the foxhunter who created a topiary foxhunt in his garden.  Which ought to segue into a discussion of gentlemen scholar foxhunters.

The Fox in the Cupboard, A Summary

I think most people enjoyed reading The Fox in the Cupboard by Jane Shilling although there were complaints.
People didn't like the way it jumped around.  Most people would find the story of a woman falling into a pursuit, like riding and then hunting, and the subsequent learning experience, pretty boring.  If the book had followed a chronological path, lots of people would not have persevered.
People didn't like some of the irrelevant detail.  Yes, well, that's a difficult line to establish.  What is exactly relevant and what isn't?  This author did not give us any insight into her job, her friends, how she spent her free time outside of riding, what she cooks, etc.  Although some people want to read exclusively about horses and hunting, many people need to see something else.  I didn't feel like this was padding but several readers definitely did.
Various things were left hanging.  This is true.  Lots of time was spent on house searches and no conclusion was supplied.  For me, this was momentarily annoying but then I breezed along to the next thing.
We all agreed that the author had perfectly captured certain aspects of the sport:  the challenges of learning to ride as an adult; the struggle to ride (and turn out) "well enough" to foxhunt; the internal struggle of rooting for the hounds or rooting for the foxes.
The author handles the anti-hunting aspects in England at the time very well.  She also provides some history of the hunt club she rides with and discusses its territory issues within a broader context.  These were some excellent discussion points for issues that foxhunting is dealing with everywhere.  That led into a discussion about why it's so difficult to "grow" our sport.
The author is a writer -- a reporter by trade -- so her writing is great.  It was accessible but dealt with some complex issues with a light touch.  I would describe it as a thoughtful book.  One person remarked that it was a thought-provoking book.  It certainly led to a more serious discussion of hunting than we usually have.  By no means was it a how-to book.
Because the author is a writer, she is also a reader.  She does not come at the sport as an athlete trying out a new sport.  This is a bookish person struggling to cope with the required athleticism.  Her reaction to this new sport is predictable:  if you want to learn about something, you read about it.  She doesn't give us a reading list or write overtly about her campaign to read everything but she mentions enough books to see what's happening.  And that's a fun thing for a reading group.  Reading is a very referential experience and the foxhunting canon is pretty well-established.  It's great fun to read a reference to Somerville & Ross and think, "All the folks in the reading group will also be reading this page and think back to The Irish RM and know exactly what Shilling is talking/writing about."  That's cool!

The Bag by Saki

Read about Saki at Wikipedia.
Read The Bag, below.  It's from Reginald in Russia.
You can read most of Saki's work at Project Gutenberg.

The Bag

“The Major is coming in to tea,” said Mrs. Hoopington to her niece.  “He’s just gone round to the stables with his horse.  Be as bright and lively as you can; the poor man’s got a fit of the glooms.”
Major Pallaby was a victim of circumstances, over which he had no control, and of his temper, over which he had very little.  He had taken on the Mastership of the Pexdale Hounds in succession to a highly popular man who had fallen foul of his committee, and the Major found himself confronted with the overt hostility of at least half the hunt, while his lack of tact and amiability had done much to alienate the remainder.  Hence subscriptions were beginning to fall off, foxes grew provokingly scarcer, and wire obtruded itself with increasing frequency.  The Major could plead reasonable excuse for his fit of the glooms.
p. 76In ranging herself as a partisan on the side of Major Pallaby Mrs. Hoopington had been largely influenced by the fact that she had made up her mind to marry him at an early date.  Against his notorious bad temper she set his three thousand a year, and his prospective succession to a baronetcy gave a casting vote in his favour.  The Major’s plans on the subject of matrimony were not at present in such an advanced stage as Mrs. Hoopington’s, but he was beginning to find his way over to Hoopington Hall with a frequency that was already being commented on.
“He had a wretchedly thin field out again yesterday,” said Mrs. Hoopington.  “Why you didn’t bring one or two hunting men down with you, instead of that stupid Russian boy, I can’t think.”
“Vladimir isn’t stupid,” protested her niece; “he’s one of the most amusing boys I ever met.  Just compare him for a moment with some of your heavy hunting men—”
“Anyhow, my dear Norah, he can’t ride.”
“Russians never can; but he shoots.”
“Yes; and what does he shoot?  Yesterday he brought home a woodpecker in his game-bag.”
p. 77“But he’d shot three pheasants and some rabbits as well.”
“That’s no excuse for including a woodpecker in his game-bag.”
“Foreigners go in for mixed bags more than we do.  A Grand Duke pots a vulture just as seriously as we should stalk a bustard.  Anyhow, I’ve explained to Vladimir that certain birds are beneath his dignity as a sportsman.  And as he’s only nineteen, of course, his dignity is a sure thing to appeal to.”
Mrs. Hoopington sniffed.  Most people with whom Vladimir came in contact found his high spirits infectious, but his present hostess was guaranteed immune against infection of that sort.
“I hear him coming in now,” she observed.  “I shall go and get ready for tea.  We’re going to have it here in the hall.  Entertain the Major if he comes in before I’m down, and, above all, be bright.”
Norah was dependent on her aunt’s good graces for many little things that made life worth living, and she was conscious of a feeling of discomfiture because the Russian youth whom she had brought down as a welcome element of change in the country-house p. 78routine was not making a good impression.  That young gentleman, however, was supremely unconscious of any shortcomings, and burst into the hall, tired, and less sprucely groomed than usual, but distinctly radiant.  His game-bag looked comfortably full.
“Guess what I have shot,” he demanded.
“Pheasants, woodpigeons, rabbits,” hazarded Norah.
“No; a large beast; I don’t know what you call it in English.  Brown, with a darkish tail.”  Norah changed colour.
“Does it live in a tree and eat nuts?” she asked, hoping that the use of the adjective “large” might be an exaggeration.
Vladimir laughed.
“Oh no; not a biyelka.”
“Does it swim and eat fish?” asked Norah, with a fervent prayer in her heart that it might turn out to be an otter.
“No,” said Vladimir, busy with the straps of his game-bag; “it lives in the woods, and eats rabbits and chickens.”
Norah sat down suddenly, and hid her face in her hands.
“Merciful Heaven!” she wailed; “he’s shot a fox!”
p. 79Vladimir looked up at her in consternation.  In a torrent of agitated words she tried to explain the horror of the situation.  The boy understood nothing, but was thoroughly alarmed.
“Hide it, hide it!” said Norah frantically, pointing to the still unopened bag.  “My aunt and the Major will be here in a moment.  Throw it on the top of that chest; they won’t see it there.”
Vladimir swung the bag with fair aim; but the strap caught in its flight on the outstanding point of an antler fixed in the wall, and the bag, with its terrible burden, remained suspended just above the alcove where tea would presently be laid.  At that moment Mrs. Hoopington and the Major entered the hall.
“The Major is going to draw our covers to-morrow,” announced the lady, with a certain heavy satisfaction.  “Smithers is confident that we’ll be able to show him some sport; he swears he’s seen a fox in the nut copse three times this week.”
“I’m sure I hope so; I hope so,” said the Major moodily.  “I must break this sequence of blank days.  One hears so often that a fox has settled down as a tenant for life in certain p. 80covers, and then when you go to turn him out there isn’t a trace of him.  I’m certain a fox was shot or trapped in Lady Widden’s woods the very day before we drew them.”
“Major, if any one tried that game on in my woods they’d get short shrift,” said Mrs. Hoopington.
Norah found her way mechanically to the tea-table and made her fingers frantically busy in rearranging the parsley round the sandwich dish.  On one side of her loomed the morose countenance of the Major, on the other she was conscious of the scared, miserable eyes of Vladimir.  And above it all hung that.  She dared not raise her eyes above the level of the tea-table, and she almost expected to see a spot of accusing vulpine blood drip down and stain the whiteness of the cloth.  Her aunt’s manner signalled to her the repeated message to “be bright”; for the present she was fully occupied in keeping her teeth from chattering.
“What did you shoot to-day?” asked Mrs. Hoopington suddenly of the unusually silent Vladimir.
“Nothing—nothing worth speaking of,” said the boy.
Norah’s heart, which had stood still for a p. 81space, made up for lost time with a most disturbing bound.
“I wish you’d find something that was worth speaking about,” said the hostess; “every one seems to have lost their tongues.”
“When did Smithers last see that fox?” said the Major.
“Yesterday morning; a fine dog-fox, with a dark brush,” confided Mrs. Hoopington.
“Aha, we’ll have a good gallop after that brush to-morrow,” said the Major, with a transient gleam of good humour.  And then gloomy silence settled again round the tea-table, a silence broken only by despondent munchings and the occasional feverish rattle of a teaspoon in its saucer.  A diversion was at last afforded by Mrs. Hoopington’s fox-terrier, which had jumped on to a vacant chair, the better to survey the delicacies of the table, and was now sniffing in an upward direction at something apparently more interesting than cold tea-cake.
“What is exciting him?” asked his mistress, as the dog suddenly broke into short angry barks, with a running accompaniment of tremulous whines.
“Why,” she continued, “it’s your game-bag, Vladimir!  What have you got in it?”
p. 82“By Gad,” said the Major, who was now standing up; “there’s a pretty warm scent!”
And then a simultaneous idea flashed on himself and Mrs. Hoopington.  Their faces flushed to distinct but harmonious tones of purple, and with one accusing voice they screamed, “You’ve shot the fox!”
Norah tried hastily to palliate Vladimir’s misdeed in their eyes, but it is doubtful whether they heard her.  The Major’s fury clothed and reclothed itself in words as frantically as a woman up in town for one day’s shopping tries on a succession of garments.  He reviled and railed at fate and the general scheme of things, he pitied himself with a strong, deep pity too poignent for tears, he condemned every one with whom he had ever come in contact to endless and abnormal punishments.  In fact, he conveyed the impression that if a destroying angel had been lent to him for a week it would have had very little time for private study.  In the lulls of his outcry could be heard the querulous monotone of Mrs. Hoopington and the sharp staccato barking of the fox-terrier.  Vladimir, who did not understand a tithe of what was being said, sat fondling a cigarette and repeating under his breath from time to time a vigorous p. 83English adjective which he had long ago taken affectionately into his vocabulary.  His mind strayed back to the youth in the old Russian folk-tale who shot an enchanted bird with dramatic results.  Meanwhile, the Major, roaming round the hall like an imprisoned cyclone, had caught sight of and joyfully pounced on the telephone apparatus, and lost no time in ringing up the hunt secretary and announcing his resignation of the Mastership.  A servant had by this time brought his horse round to the door, and in a few seconds Mrs. Hoopington’s shrill monotone had the field to itself.  But after the Major’s display her best efforts at vocal violence missed their full effect; it was as though one had come straight out from a Wagner opera into a rather tame thunderstorm.  Realising, perhaps, that her tirades were something of an anticlimax, Mrs. Hoopington broke suddenly into some rather necessary tears and marched out of the room, leaving behind her a silence almost as terrible as the turmoil which had preceded it.
“What shall I do with—that?” asked Vladimir at last.
“Bury it,” said Norah.
“Just plain burial?” said Vladimir, rather p. 84relieved.  He had almost expected that some of the local clergy would have insisted on being present, or that a salute might have to be fired over the grave.
And thus it came to pass that in the dusk of a November evening the Russian boy, murmuring a few of the prayers of his Church for luck, gave hasty but decent burial to a large polecat under the lilac trees at Hoopington.

The Brogue by Saki

Read about Saki at Wikipedia.
Read The Brogue (about horses but not about hunting), below.  It's from Beasts and Super-Beasts.  You can read most of Saki's work at Project Gutenberg.

The Brogue

The hunting season had come to an end, and the Mullets had not succeeded in selling the Brogue.  There had been a kind of tradition in the family for the past three or four years, a sort of fatalistic hope, that the Brogue would find a purchaser before the hunting was over; but seasons came and went without anything happening to justify such ill-founded optimism.  The animal had been named Berserker in the earlier stages of its career; it had been rechristened the Brogue later on, in recognition of the fact that, once acquired, it was extremely difficult to get rid of.  The unkinder wits of the neighbourhood had been known to suggest that the first letter of its name was superfluous.  The Brogue had been variously described in sale catalogues as a light-weight hunter, a lady’s hack, and, more simply, but still with a touch of imagination, as a useful brown gelding, standing 15.1.  Toby Mullet had ridden him for four seasons with the West Wessex; you can ride almost any sort of horse with the West Wessex as long as it is an animal that knows the country.  The Brogue knew the country intimately, having personally created most of the gaps that were to be met with in banks and hedges for many miles round.  His manners and characteristics were not ideal in the hunting field, but he was probably rather safer to ride to hounds than he was as a hack on country roads.  According to the Mullet family, he was not really road-shy, but there were one or two objects of dislike that brought on sudden attacks of what Toby called the swerving sickness.  Motors and cycles he treated with tolerant disregard, but pigs, wheelbarrows, piles of stones by the roadside, perambulators in a village street, gates painted too aggressively white, and sometimes, but not always, the newer kind of beehives, turned him aside from his tracks in vivid imitation of the zigzag course of forked lightning.  If a pheasant rose noisily from the other side of a hedgerow the Brogue would spring into the air at the same moment, but this may have been due to a desire to be companionable.  The Mullet family contradicted the widely prevalent report that the horse was a confirmed crib-biter.

It was about the third week in May that Mrs. Mullet, relict of the late Sylvester Mullet, and mother of Toby and a bunch of daughters, assailed Clovis Sangrail on the outskirts of the village with a breathless catalogue of local happenings.

“You know our new neighbour, Mr. Penricarde?” she vociferated; “awfully rich, owns tin mines in Cornwall, middle-aged and rather quiet.  He’s taken the Red House on a long lease and spent a lot of money on alterations and improvements.  Well, Toby’s sold him the Brogue!”

Clovis spent a moment or two in assimilating the astonishing news; then he broke out into unstinted congratulation.  If he had belonged to a more emotional race he would probably have kissed Mrs. Mullet.

“How wonderfully lucky to have pulled it off at last!  Now you can buy a decent animal.  I’ve always said that Toby was clever.  Ever so many congratulations.”

“Don’t congratulate me.  It’s the most unfortunate thing that could have happened!” said Mrs. Mullet dramatically.

Clovis stared at her in amazement.

“Mr. Penricarde,” said Mrs. Mullet, sinking her voice to what she imagined to be an impressive whisper, though it rather resembled a hoarse, excited squeak, “Mr. Penricarde has just begun to pay attentions to Jessie.  Slight at first, but now unmistakable.  I was a fool not to have seen it sooner.  Yesterday, at the Rectory garden party, he asked her what her favourite flowers were, and she told him carnations, and to-day a whole stack of carnations has arrived, clove and malmaison and lovely dark red ones, regular exhibition blooms, and a box of chocolates that he must have got on purpose from London.  And he’s asked her to go round the links with him to-morrow.  And now, just at this critical moment, Toby has sold him that animal.  It’s a calamity!”

“But you’ve been trying to get the horse off your hands for years,” said Clovis.

“I’ve got a houseful of daughters,” said Mrs. Mullet, “and I’ve been trying—well, not to get them off my hands, of course, but a husband or two wouldn’t be amiss among the lot of them; there are six of them, you know.”

“I don’t know,” said Clovis, “I’ve never counted, but I expect you’re right as to the number; mothers generally know these things.”

“And now,” continued Mrs. Mullet, in her tragic whisper, “when there’s a rich husband-in-prospect imminent on the horizon Toby goes and sells him that miserable animal.  It will probably kill him if he tries to ride it; anyway it will kill any affection he might have felt towards any member of our family.  What is to be done?  We can’t very well ask to have the horse back; you see, we praised it up like anything when we thought there was a chance of his buying it, and said it was just the animal to suit him.”

“Couldn’t you steal it out of his stable and send it to grass at some farm miles away?” suggested Clovis; “write ‘Votes for Women’ on the stable door, and the thing would pass for a Suffragette outrage.  No one who knew the horse could possibly suspect you of wanting to get it back again.”

“Every newspaper in the country would ring with the affair,” said Mrs. Mullet; “can’t you imagine the headline, ‘Valuable Hunter Stolen by Suffragettes’?  The police would scour the countryside till they found the animal.”

“Well, Jessie must try and get it back from Penricarde on the plea that it’s an old favourite.  She can say it was only sold because the stable had to be pulled down under the terms of an old repairing lease, and that now it has been arranged that the stable is to stand for a couple of years longer.”

“It sounds a queer proceeding to ask for a horse back when you’ve just sold him,” said Mrs. Mullet, “but something must be done, and done at once.  The man is not used to horses, and I believe I told him it was as quiet as a lamb.  After all, lambs go kicking and twisting about as if they were demented, don’t they?”

“The lamb has an entirely unmerited character for sedateness,” agreed Clovis.

Jessie came back from the golf links next day in a state of mingled elation and concern.

“It’s all right about the proposal,” she announced; “he came out with it at the sixth hole.  I said I must have time to think it over.  I accepted him at the seventh.”

“My dear,” said her mother, “I think a little more maidenly reserve and hesitation would have been advisable, as you’ve known him so short a time.  You might have waited till the ninth hole.”

“The seventh is a very long hole,” said Jessie; “besides, the tension was putting us both off our game.  By the time we’d got to the ninth hole we’d settled lots of things.  The honeymoon is to be spent in Corsica, with perhaps a flying visit to Naples if we feel like it, and a week in London to wind up with.  Two of his nieces are to be asked to be bridesmaids, so with our lot there will be seven, which is rather a lucky number.  You are to wear your pearl grey, with any amount of Honiton lace jabbed into it.  By the way, he’s coming over this evening to ask your consent to the whole affair.  So far all’s well, but about the Brogue it’s a different matter.  I told him the legend about the stable, and how keen we were about buying the horse back, but he seems equally keen on keeping it.  He said he must have horse exercise now that he’s living in the country, and he’s going to start riding to-morrow.  He’s ridden a few times in the Row, on an animal that was accustomed to carry octogenarians and people undergoing rest cures, and that’s about all his experience in the saddle—oh, and he rode a pony once in Norfolk, when he was fifteen and the pony twenty-four; and to-morrow he’s going to ride the Brogue!  I shall be a widow before I’m married, and I do so want to see what Corsica’s like; it looks so silly on the map.”

Clovis was sent for in haste, and the developments of the situation put before him.

“Nobody can ride that animal with any safety,” said Mrs. Mullet, “except Toby, and he knows by long experience what it is going to shy at, and manages to swerve at the same time.”

“I did hint to Mr. Penricarde—to Vincent, I should say—that the Brogue didn’t like white gates,” said Jessie.

“White gates!” exclaimed Mrs. Mullet; “did you mention what effect a pig has on him?  He’ll have to go past Lockyer’s farm to get to the high road, and there’s sure to be a pig or two grunting about in the lane.”

“He’s taken rather a dislike to turkeys lately,” said Toby.

“It’s obvious that Penricarde mustn’t be allowed to go out on that animal,” said Clovis, “at least not till Jessie has married him, and tired of him.  I tell you what: ask him to a picnic to-morrow, starting at an early hour; he’s not the sort to go out for a ride before breakfast.  The day after I’ll get the rector to drive him over to Crowleigh before lunch, to see the new cottage hospital they’re building there.  The Brogue will be standing idle in the stable and Toby can offer to exercise it; then it can pick up a stone or something of the sort and go conveniently lame.  If you hurry on the wedding a bit the lameness fiction can be kept up till the ceremony is safely over.”

Mrs. Mullet belonged to an emotional race, and she kissed Clovis.

It was nobody’s fault that the rain came down in torrents the next morning, making a picnic a fantastic impossibility.  It was also nobody’s fault, but sheer ill-luck, that the weather cleared up sufficiently in the afternoon to tempt Mr. Penricarde to make his first essay with the Brogue.  They did not get as far as the pigs at Lockyer’s farm; the rectory gate was painted a dull unobtrusive green, but it had been white a year or two ago, and the Brogue never forgot that he had been in the habit of making a violent curtsey, a back-pedal and a swerve at this particular point of the road.  Subsequently, there being apparently no further call on his services, he broke his way into the rectory orchard, where he found a hen turkey in a coop; later visitors to the orchard found the coop almost intact, but very little left of the turkey.

Mr. Penricarde, a little stunned and shaken, and suffering from a bruised knee and some minor damages, good-naturedly ascribed the accident to his own inexperience with horses and country roads, and allowed Jessie to nurse him back into complete recovery and golf-fitness within something less than a week.

In the list of wedding presents which the local newspaper published a fortnight or so later appeared the following item:

“Brown saddle-horse, ‘The Brogue,’ bridegroom’s gift to bride.”

“Which shows,” said Toby Mullet, “that he knew nothing.”

“Or else,” said Clovis, “that he has a very pleasing wit.”