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First Edition. [1]-28, [4-list of clubs], 31-80 pages. Publisher's printed grey wrappers. 5 7/8 x 4 inches. Chipping and tearing to the wrappers. Previous owner name "E.F. Schuler??" is penciled on title page and one other page. Pages 72-80 contain a catalog of lawn tennis items (nets, shoes, court strip marking machine balls, and some books). The catalog is offered by Wright & Ditson, which was not only a publisher but also a manufacturer. The front wrapper has a printed illustration of the court in various typefaces. Wraps. This early lawn tennis rule book was issued seven years after the United States Lawn Tennis Association was created. It contains several articles, including "Winter Practice for Lawn Tennis" by Sears, R. D. ; "Classification of Players of 1887" by Clark, Jos. S.; "The Merits of Lawn Tennis" by Taylor, H. A. ; "Tournaments of 1887" by Slocum, J. W. Jr, Fixtures for 1888 and Terms used in Tennis. One remarkable aspect of the pamphlet is the inclusion, between pp 28 and 31, of four pages listing the clubs, their locations, and secretaries that comprised the association - a mere 76 of them nationwide. At this time, the sport was not tennis as we know it today - practiced by many - but conducted exclusively in a private club atmosphere. Wright & Ditson is still in business today, founded in 1871 by Baseball Hall of Famer George Wright and Boston businessman Henry Ditson as "a purveyor of tennis, golf and baseball equipment." Rare in commerce. Yale notes this title in their serials with no dates. There is a 1885 microform copy at NYPL (probably from the Chicago History Museum physical copy), and physical copies for the years 1889 at the British Library, and 1896 at Harvard. Otherwise not found in OCLC as of this writing. "Given what happened on this Saturday in 1881, the Fifth Avenue Hotel was a logical setting. Located at the corner of 23rd Street and 24th Street in Manhattan, the Fifth Avenue Hotel was a prime meeting spot for many American movers and shakers, including such notables as President Ulysses S. Grant, robber baron Jay Gould, political operator Boss Tweed and New York Times editor John C. Reid. If you were among New York's power elite, you knew this hotel. So naturally, a newly imported leisure sport fit in quite nicely. Tennis as we currently know itâ "called "lawn tennis" in those daysâ "had been invented in Great Britain in 1874. Soon enough, it made its way to America. According to the scholar Digby Baltzell, author of the book "Sporting Gentlemen: Men's Tennis from the Age of Honor to the Cult of the Superstar," by 1880 the game was being played at approximately 30 exclusive clubs in the United States, mostly in the East, but also in San Francisco, Chicago and New Orleans. Around this time, such tennis lovers as Clarence Clark of Philadelphia, Mary Outerbridge of Staten Island, NY and James Dwight of Boston agreed that it was necessary to start a singular, national organization to create rules and regulations for court dimensions, the weight of the ball, and other aspects of the game. So it was that nearly 100 people, representing 33 clubs, met in Room F of the Fifth Avenue Hotel and brought to life the United States National Lawn Tennis Association. A constitution was drafted, with R.S. Oliver of the Albany Lawn Tennis Club elected president and Clark becoming secretary-treasurer. By that summer, at the newly opened Newport Casino in Rhode Island, the first U.S. Championships was played." (tennis com website, article "TBT, 1881: The birth of USLTA, when the game was called lawn tennis"). Seller Inventory # 29356
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