Victorian Silver & Enamel Anthropomorphic Foxhound Calling Card Case - Cleveland Hunt Interest

An extremely fine quality late Victorian silver calling card case, the cover finely enamelled with an anthropomorphic Foxhound wearing hunting jacket and doffing his riding hat, holding a crop, and wearing riding boots. Inscribed in enamel beside:- "Yours Sportingly Rallywood Cleveland". The silver-gilt interior with pierced mounts and inscribed to 'Myra July 16th 1889. The external reverse with diagonally-divided red and blue (the colours of the Cleveland Hunt) enamel decoration over wavy engine-turning. Complete with original G. Wilson Barret & Co silk and velvet lined Morocco leather retailer's case, 48 Piccadilly, next door to Burlington House.

By George Wilkinson, London, 1889.

The image is copied from the original book illustration by 'C.M.D.' 1889 (See photos).

Rallywood Cleveland was the pseudonym of Lilian Frances Myra Swan (1869-1949), authoress of 'Some Incidents in the Life of a Foxhound; An Autobiography, published by Sampson Brothers of York 1889. She was born in 1869 and was raised at the family estate, Upsall Hall in Yorkshire. After school education, she wrote two sporting novels (one listed above) before turning to serious fiction - however, her career sadly never flourished and after struggling to publish her final novel she stopped writing in 1905. She died unmarried in her native Yorkshire in 1949.

Author: Myra Swan (1869–1949)

Alternate Name(s): Lilian Frances Myra Swan (legal name); Rallywood Cleveland (pseudonym)

Biography: Lilian Frances Myra Swan was born in 1869 in Kings Norton, Worcestershire, the daughter of iron master John George Swan (1839–1900) and Lucie Anne Dawes (herself the daughter of an iron master). She grew up in comfort at her family's estate Upsall Hall in Yorkshire. As a young woman, she turned her hand to fiction beginning with two sporting novels before writing more serious fare. None of her fiction received much notice and the travails to get her final novel published in 1905 drove her to stop writing altogether. She never married and died in 1949 in Yorkshire.

References: British Census (1881, 1891, 1901, 1911)

Fiction Titles:

Some Incidents in the Life of a Foxhound: An Autobiography. 1 vol. York: Sampson Brothers, 1889.
First Flight: or, What a Hunting-Crop Saw. 1 vol. York: John Sampson, 1890.
Shallows. 2 vol. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1894.
The Unattainable. 1 vol. London: Chapman and Hall, 1898.
Ballast: A Novel. 1 vol. London: Longman, 1901.

The Cleveland Hunt country, covers some 25 miles by 15 miles. It varies from vale to high moorland and encompasses the highest cliffs in England. Best centres: Saltburn, Stokesley and Guisborough.
Hunt History Prior to 1827 this pack was known as the Roxby and Cleveland. 'Tommy Page', called the father of the Roxby and Cleveland Hunt, was Master at the end of the 18th century. Until 1871 the hounds were trencher fed. See The Cleveland as a Trencher-fed Pack by Sir A.E. Pease, Bart (Longmans, Green & Co., 1887). On retirement in 1943, the Joint Masters, Mrs. M.W. Ringrose-Wharton and Captain Ringrose-Wharton gave the hounds to the country. The Hunt Club, established on 13th November, 1722, is the oldest in the country

Sold - £1,950.00