daverichey August 12th, 2008

TITLE: Marlin Firearms: A History Of The Guns & The Company That Made Them

AUTHOR: Lt. Col. William S. Brophy USAR, Ret.
PUBLISHER: Stackpole Books
DISTIRBUTOR: Stackpole Books
CONTACT:
Stackpole Books
5067 Ritter Road
Mechanicsburg, PA 17055

WEBSITE: Stackpole Books
ISBN #978-0-8117-0877-7
COST $89.95 + S/H; Hardcover, dust jacket, 696 pages with index, black-white photos & drawings.

This large and heavy book is not only a tribute to the company and its many employees and fine products but to the firearms themselves. This book is the encyclopedia of Marlin firearms, and the author left no stone unturned in his efforts to make this book complete in all respects.

This book discusses Marlin firearms in all their many forms. The company made handguns, Ballard rifles, lever action rifles, semiautomatic rifles, bolt action rifles, shotguns and pump action rifles for sportsmen and target shooters. They also made barrels for automatic rifles during World War II and the Korean Conflict.

The company bearing his name was founded by John Mahlon Marlin (1836-1901), and he first began making pistols. In 1863, Marlin became known as a pistol-maker in New Haven, Conn. By 1871 he became known as a pistol manufacturer, and in 1872 he was known as a manufacturer of firearms. From that time on, Marlin’s business became known as the Marlin Fire Arms Company. It went through other name changes in the future as Marlin’s business became affiliated with other similar businesses.

The book is filled with historic photographs and patent drawings. The company manufactured machine guns for the war efforts for World War I and II, and the company made machine guns for the U. S. Navy and machine guns for air planes.

Marlin firearms were a part of my youth, and it was through advertising and dramatic drawings such as the one on the cover of this book, that provided me with the romance of this American firearm company back when I was a kid.

Marlin firearms played an important role in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and this book captures everything about this company that made it a household name during that era. This was, in true American fashion, the story of one man’s dream and how he built it into a nationally known and world recognized manufacturer of fine firearms.

Tags: brophy, company, dave, firearms, guns, history, marlin, richey, scoopsbooks

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daverichey February 23rd, 2008

TITLE: LEGENDS OF THE AFRICAN FRONTIER
AUTHOR: David Chandler
PUBLISHER: Safari Press

CONTACT:

Safari Press
15621 Chemical Lane
Building B
Huntington Beach, CA 90803

WEBSITE: Safari Press.com
COST: $85; Safari Press books are not sold in bookstores and are only available from the publisher.

Safari Press has done it again. This company has become known around the world for producing some of the finest books on big-game hunting that have ever been written. The books are hardbound, cloaked in cloth or leather, and often come in a beautiful slipcase that protects the book.

As superb as the construction of these books may be, it’s what is inside them that sets Safari Press titles above those published by many of the trade publishers. These titles are numbered and signed in the limited editions, and from a literary standpoint, they rate the highest of marks.

I dreamed of Africa as a kid in the 1940s and 1950s, hoping one day to shoot the key big game of the Dark Continent. I wanted to take a Cape buffalo, elephant, kudu, leopard, lion, and rhino. I wanted to go to India to hunt leopards and tigers.

Haven’t visited either place, and likely never will. But the fire of going there, and hunting big game, still burns in my belly. So, if you can’t do it, the next best thing is to read about it. I’ve been hooked on Safari Press books for many years simply because they help keep that dream alive.

This book clawed its way into my consciousness like a wounded leopard ambushing the unwary hunter. My reading about the African continent and its big game has been a part of my life for over 50 years. Some of the names in this book are familiar and some are not, but each of the people listed make up the fabric from which African stories are cut.

I’ve read books by Bunny Allen, Sir Samuel Baker, Karamojo Bell, John Burger, Douglas Chadwick, Isak Dinesen (who wrote Out Of Africa), Raymond Ditmars, Paul duChaillu, Negley Farson, William Finnaughty, Edouard Foa, Atilio Gatti, William Cornwallis Harris, Frank Hibben, William Hornaday, John Hunter, Martin & Osa Johnson, Cherry Kearton, Kalman Kittenberger, Bert Klineberger, Alexander Lake, R. Lydekker, Denis Lyell, Beryl Markham, James Mellon, John Millais, Arthur Neumann, A. Blayney Percival, J. H. Patterson, Theodore Roosevelt, Tony Sanchez-Arino, Frederick Selous, James Sutherland, John ‘Pondoro’ Taylor, Rowland Ward, Harry Wolhuter and many others.

Books by these author-hunters fired my imagination years ago, and many of their books have been read and continue to intrigue me. Over a half-century of reading about their tales of Africa is the stuff of which hunting dreams are made.

There is a short (or long, in some cases) biography of all those who are named in this book, and the biographies give birth and death dates (when known) for each person, and a background on each one. The book kept me up and reading nonstop for three days. This is one great book, and it’s a title to get lost in.

Anyone interested in the history of Africa’s hunters needs this book. It’s one of the best I’ve seen, and I’ve seen others with far less information and less entertaining as well. It gets my vote for superb information about African history and hunting,

Tags: africa, biography, chandler, frontier, history, hunters, hunting, legends, press, safari

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