THE GENERAL STUD BOOK - Lot 55

THE GENERAL STUD BOOK Complete collection from 1793 to 1993 in 42 publisher-bound volumes (volumes 36 through 42 each consist of 2 parts) The General Stud Book is a genealogical registry of horses in Great Britain and Ireland. It is used to document the breeding of Thoroughbreds. It is now published every four years by Weatherbys In 1791, James Weatherby published “Introduction to a General Stud Book,” which was an attempt to compile the pedigrees of racehorses and those that had raced in the past. It was riddled with errors and incomplete, but it proved very popular and led, in 1793, to the publication of the first volume of the General Stud Book, which contained many more pedigrees and was more accurate. It should be noted that the early volumes were revised several times; this collection, for example, includes the 5th edition of Volume 1, published in 1891. Thus, the first 18 volumes of this set are reprints published between 1891 and 1932. Volumes 19 through 42, on the other hand, are first editions.