News
News
Late Summer 2023
Alastair Loudon’s splendid The Gentry Links Trilogy launched last week at the R&A World Golf Museum.
​
At a presentation made to international invited guests held at the R&A World Golf Museum, St Andrews, on Thursday, 31st August, Alastair Loudon launched The Gentry Links Trilogy, published by Grant Books Ltd. The presentation was titled ‘Exploring Iconic Golf Art’ with a sub title of ‘Reaching into the Soul of the Game, which Mr Loudon explained was the ethos underlying his trilogy of books.
He explained his approach in researching and writing the trilogy, which he summarised as:
​
Using an evidence based approach to refine knowledge about known historical events;
Looking for a broader understanding by linking events that have only, so far, been considered in isolation to each other; and
Seeking an holistic view through a perspective over a period of time.
From his initial research, he realised that there were three key periods in the development of gentry golf in the 19th century that led to the coming of age of the modern game.
In 1832 the status of who was recognised as a gentleman golfer changed because of The Great Reform Act, increasing the number of golfers.
In 1848 the gutta percha ball revolutionised the economics of the game, making it affordable for a far wider section of the population, which also coincided with the start of a new era of Gentlemanly Capitalism.
By 1897 golf was increasingly being played outside Scotland. This led to public debate as to how the Rules of Golf should be governed.
Fortuitously, there were three famous paintings in these three eras, so exploring gentry golf was facilitated by researching these paintings.
Mr Loudon provided an insight into the range of social history stories that emerged from his studies relating to The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, the dawning of professional golf, and the arrival of golf in North America.
​
Even More News
Early Summer 2023
Dear Clients and Friends,
We are thrilled to announce the publication of The Golfer’s Poet, George Fullerton Carnegie’s Golfiana, 1833-1863.
Experts concur that the Carnegie volumes are as foundational to the Library of Golf as is The Goff by Thomas Mathison (1743).
A concise description of this important publication can be read in the rear flap of the book’s dust jacket as can the remarkable credentials of the book’s contributors in the front flap: David Hamilton, Rand Jerris, and Peter Lewis, each an acclaimed and award-winning golf author and historian.
Typeset by Hughes & Company at Pershore, England and printed and bound by Henry Ling Limited at Dorchester, Dorset on acid-free paper and sewn to casebound with a hard slipcase, this publication, at 184 pages, is limited to 275 copies. A rare 1842 third edition was sold at auction more than ten years ago for more than £20,000.
Price is £59 plus handling, postage, and shipping.
Weight is 695 grams.
Regards,
D M Wilson, III
Publisher
Grant Books Ltd
More News
Early Summer 2023
Grant Books Ltd announces the publication of Golf at the Beginning, an important anthology by David Hamilton, renowned historian of medicine and golf and noted golf author and publisher.
Dear Clients and Friends,
We are pleased to announce that David Hamilton’s anthology of his heralded Partick Press limited edition Early Golf series 1985-1988—focusing upon golf at Glasgow, Aberdeen, St Andrews, and Edinburgh and Leith—is now available in a limited edition of 250 boxed volumes, each containing re-set copies of the four prior books in a single volume.
Our friend David‘s accolades include the Murdoch Medal in 1995 and 2005 and the President’s Medal in 2013, each awarded by the British Golf Collectors Society. Accolades in the fields of medicine and surgery are also numerous.
​
Here are some excerpts:
The publication, at 120 pages, is printed on acid-free paper with numerous illustrations. Each volume is PUR-sewn to a soft backing and the book is boxed in a hard slipcase. Typesetting is by Hughes & Company at Pershore, England with printing and binding by Henry Ling Limited at Dorchester, England.
Original copies of the four volumes, each published more than thirty five years ago, are collectors’ items that command high premium prices. We believe this anthology will soon achieve the same status.
Pricing is £53 plus handling, postage, and shipping.
Shipping weight is 1065 grams.
Regards,
D M Wilson, III
Publisher
Grant Books Ltd
An Alert
Early Summer 2023
​
The Gentry Links Trilogy by our Edinburgh friend Alastair Loudon is an exceptionally-researched and well-written series.​
The Gentry Links: 'The Golfers' (2019), with reference to The Golfers: The Grand Match over the Links of St Andrews, by Charles Lees, 1847
North Berwick, 1832 and its Gentry Links (2021) with reference to The First Meeting of North Berwick Golf Club, 1832 by Sir Francis Grant PRA
Gentry Links: To the Modern Game, the Bigger Picture, Medal Day, 1894 (2023),
with reference to Captain Driving Off by Alexander Wardlow, 1894
The bookshelves of golf historians house many volumes about golf course architecture, champions of the game, instruction, golf clubs, equipment, general history, agronomy, poetry, the rules, ephemera, and et cetera. Yet, there are sparse books of the game devoted to play by the gentry in the game’s earlier days.
The focus of The Gentry Links Trilogy is upon the gentlemen golfers in Scotland who were important patrons of the game of golf throughout the 19th century, set within the context of the social history of that period and using as a central focus an iconic painting in each book’s era.
The three volumes in Alastair Loudon’s fascinating trilogy are housed in an attractive and durable collector’s box. Each volume is printed on acid-free paper and the central iconic paintings are presented in an excellent fold-out manner.
The boxed series is priced at £150, plus handling, postage, and shipping.
Weight is 3.1 kilograms.
​
Regards,
​
D M Wilson, III
Publisher
Grant Books Ltd
News
Early Summer 2023
Grass Routes by first-time book author Richard Pennell published by Grant Books Ltd
Dear Clients and Friends,
We are pleased to announce our publication of Grass Routes by first-time book author Richard Pennell.
Richard is an Englishman, currently resident in Surrey, home to many remarkable heathland golfing venues in its ‘Surrey sand belt’, several of which feature in his writings. The author arrived at this publishing destination after important experiences during the prior twenty years working in golf: in green-keeping at Mitcham Golf Club, in secretariat positions at New Zealand Golf Club and Royal Wimbledon Golf Club, and service as Secretary and General Manager at Woking Golf Club. Richard is the current Membership Secretary at West Byfleet Golf Club, which sits atop a base of ‘Bagshot sand’ in Surrey.
Richard is a careful observer about golf’s many attributes, vicissitudes, and virtues and he has a gifted talent to express each in wonderful prose, which has appeared to prior acclaim in McKellar and Golf Quarterly magazines.
Grass Routes is a 208-page book comprising eighteen essays, printed on acid-free paper, sewn to a soft cover, embellished by wonderful photographic images and housed in an attractive slipcase. The book is published in a limited edition of 1000 copies, priced at £15 plus handling, postage, and shipping.
Grass Routes is available directly from the author via this link to his website: https://pitchmarks.bigcartel.com. Other examples of his writing and other media activity can be found here: https://pitchmarks.substack.com.
Here are a few excerpts from Grass Routes, which we trust will be followed by more golf publications from Richard in the future:
Regards,
​
D M Wilson, III
Publisher
Grant Books Ltd
News
Early Winter 2023
Dear Clients and Friends,
The late Renton Laidlaw (1939-2021) penned with the wonderful assistance of his sister Jennifer at his side a delightful series of essays published posthumously as Memories Too Good to Forget, brought forth a few weeks prior the 150th Open Championship, held last July on the Old Course at St Andrews. The Preface is by Ms. Laidlaw, the Foreword by Jack Nicklaus, the Introduction by Mr. Laidlaw, and the Afterword by Sir Michael Bonallack.
The print run was 3000 copies, substantially all gifted by Ms. Laidlaw to Members of The Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, the Association of Golf Writers, and the former IMG European Tour Productions.
We are very pleased to advise that Ms Laidlaw has generously given Grant Books Ltd the exclusive right to offer limited remaining inventory of this especial volume to our clients and friends.
Purchase is easy through the ‘Bookstore’ at our website at www.grantbooks.co.uk. Importantly, ALL proceeds we will contribute as a charitable gift to Golf Foundation (www.golf-foundation.org), a prominent UK charity founded in 1952 whose founders included Sir Henry Cotton and Gerald Micklem. The Golf Foundation is dedicated to "helping young people enjoy the playing and personal benefits of golf."
Memories Too Good to Forget is an exhilarating read.
Regards,
​
D M Wilson, III
Publisher
Grant Books Ltd
News
November 2022
​
H R J Grant
We are saddened to advise that Bob Grant, founder of Grant Books in 1971, recently passed away at age 84 in Droitwich, England.
Bob left an enduring and important mark upon upon the Library of Golf.
We extend our sincere condolences to his wife Shirley, his long-time partner at Grant Books, and to his family.
Sincerely,
D M Wilson, III
Publisher
Grant Books Ltd
News
Late Summer 2022
We are pleased to offer our clients and friends for the coming period August 16-31 a 15% discount on each of A Pentalogy of Golf Architecture Classics and Golfer’s Guide to the Game and Greens of Scotland.
Each order will receive a complimentary copy of our soft-bound edition of The Duffers’ Golf Club Papers, itself a retail value of £13.
​
Please use Offer Code FESCUE22 at checkout to receive your 15% savings plus the complimentary “Duffers” volume.
News
July 2022
Dear Clients and Friends,
We are delighted to announce that our colleagues and good friends, Rand Jerris and Peter Lewis, authors of Swing Time, A Celebration of Golf and Music, 1890-1939, have been named recipients of the high honour of the ‘Murdoch Medal’ for 2022 by the British Golf Collectors Society, whose selection committee has described the book as "a sublime publication and beautifully produced." We extend hearty congratulations to Rand and Peter.
Grant Books Ltd is proud to have published this important addition to the Library of Golf, and we are grateful, not only to Rand and Peter, but also to our typesetter, Hughes & Company, and to our printer and binder, Henry Ling Ltd, for their exceptional expertise in presenting to a high standard this extraordinary work of research and scholarship. All proceeds accrue to the USGA Foundation to benefit the USGA Museum and Archives.
Please visit our Bookstore at www.grantbooks.co.uk to acquire a copy of Swing Time, A Celebration of Golf and Music, 1890-1939, either for yourself or for a golfing friend.
News
July 2022
Our Newest Publication
The Old Course in the Library of Golf, 1833-1933 has been inspired by the 150th Open Championship this year when The Open returns to the Old Course at St Andrews for the 30th time.
We have focused on 1833 to 1933 so as to start with George Fullerton Carnegie’s first edition of Golfiana and to end with Golf Courses: Design, Construction and Upkeep edited by Martin H.F. Sutton and Dr. Alister MacKenzie’s “St Andrews Manuscript.”
Chronologically arranged, this anthology transports the reader through a hundred critical years of the history of the Old Course using words, artwork and maps that were chosen after a careful review of the approximate 500 books and booklets that premier golf bibliographers count as the total number of such published golf sources for the period 1833-1933.
The Old Course in the Library of Golf, 1833-1933 houses within its covers a pantheon of classic golf authors: Balfour, Bauchope, Bauer, Bennett, Carnegie, Chambers, Clark, Colt, Dalrymple, Darwin, Everard, Farnie, Fleming, Hilton, Hutchinson, Lang, Low, Macdonald, MacKenzie, Simpson, Smith, Sutton, Tulloch and Wethered. Their words, whether in prose or rhyme, describe and illuminate the Old Course as it appeared to them during the period 1833-1933, and their observations not only retain truths, but also resonate with us now, as valuable reference and as enduring respect for this unique and historic terrain and turf at seaside in St Andrews.
Our selections are embellished by wonderful images provided by permission of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews as well as text and images provided by permission of the Bernard Darwin Estate and the Estate of Raymond M. Haddock.
The book’s singular focus is the Old Course itself—not the town, not the history of St Andrews, not the golfing societies nor clubs, not the game nor its personalities, not the championships nor competitions— simply the Old Course itself as expressed timelessly in the exposition, photography, art, and cartography in our chosen sources.
The book is in landscape format, typeset in 14 on 16pt Plantin, printed on acid-free paper, casebound, with dust jacket and with cover and slipcase gold-blocked. The volume is 304 pages and includes more than 150 images, many in colour. Typesetting is by Hughes & Company in Pershore. Printing and binding are by Henry Ling Ltd in Dorset.
Price is £50, excluding shipping, handling, and postage. Shipping weight is 2.465 kg.
​
Ordering is easy at grantbooks.co.uk.
News
May 2022
We recently shipped the last inventory of our Machrihanish, Machaire Shanais, Golf 1880s-1920s, published in a limited edition of 200 casebound and slipcased copies in early 2019. Grant Books Ltd is grateful for the support our publication has received from clients and friends. This book is displayed in "The Archives" at www.grantbooks.co.uk.
We are pleased to advise that the Machrihanish Golf Club itself has available copies of this important book in soft-bound format. This edition is displayed in ‘The Bookstore’ at www.grantbooks.co.uk. Copies can be purchased at £12 each, plus postage and shipping, by ordering easily from the Club at:
This link will direct you to secretary@machgolf.com, who can also be reached at 011-44-01586-810213, extension 3.
Here is the Introduction to ‘Machaire Shanais’:
D. M. Wilson, III
Publisher
Grant Books Ltd
News
May 2022
Pre-Publication Alert:
The 150th Open Championship
We are pleased to announce the coming publication of The Old Course in the Library of Golf 1833-1933, which will be available for delivery in June this year. The book has been inspired by the 150th Open Championship this year when The Open returns to the Old Course for the 30th time to St Andrews.
We focused on 1833 to 1933 so as to start with George Fullerton Carnegie’s first edition of Golfiana and to end with Golf Courses: Design, Construction and Upkeep edited by Martin H.F. Sutton and Dr. Alister MacKenzie’s “St Andrews Manuscript.”
Chronologically arranged, this anthology transports the reader through a hundred critical years of the history of the Old Course using words, artwork and maps that were chosen after a careful review of the approximate 500 books and booklets that premier golf bibliographers count as the total number of such published golf sources for the period 1833-1933.
The Old Course in the Library of Golf 1833-1933 houses within its covers a pantheon of classic golf authors: Balfour, Bauchope, Bauer, Bennett, Carnegie, Chambers, Clark, Colt, Dalrymple, Darwin, Everard, Farnie, Fleming, Hilton, Hutchinson, Lang, Low, Macdonald, MacKenzie, Simpson, Smith, Sutton, Tulloch and Wethered. Their words, whether in prose or rhyme, describe and illuminate the Old Course as it appeared to them during the period 1833-1933, and their observations not only retain truths, but also resonate with us now, as valuable reference and as enduring respect for this unique and historic terrain and turf at seaside in St Andrews.
Our selections are embellished by wonderful images provided by permission of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews as well as text and images provided by permission of the Bernard Darwin Estate and the Estate of Raymond M. Haddock.
The book’s singular focus is the Old Course itself—not the town, not the history of St Andrews, not the golfing societies nor clubs, not the game nor its personalities, not the championships nor competitions— simply the Old Course itself as expressed timelessly in the exposition, photography, art, and cartography in our chosen sources.
Here is an image of the book’s dust jacket with excerpts from the Foreword by David Hamilton, famed golf author, historian and publisher, and excerpts from the Afterword by Peter N. Lewis, renowned golf historian and author:
The book is in landscape format, typeset in 14 on 16pt Plantin, printed on acid-free paper, casebound, with dust jacket and with cover and slipcase gold-blocked. The volume is 304 pages and includes more than 150 images, many in colour. Typesetting is by Hughes & Company in Pershore. Printing and binding are by Henry Ling Ltd in Dorset.
The Old Course in the Library of 1833-1933 will be limited to 350 copies.
D. M. Wilson, III
Publisher
Grant Books Ltd
News
April 2022
We are pleased to publish for our clients and friends a facsimile edition in re-set typeface of the rare Golfer’s Guide to the Game and Greens of Scotland, edited by William Dalrymple. The original book was published in 1894. We accompany our edition with a very informative Introduction by David Hamilton, renowned golf author, historian and publisher.
The book is illustrated, printed on acid-free paper, cloth-bound, with a hard slipcase. We include a reproduction of the fold-out map that was attached to the rear cover of the original 1894 book. The edition, limited to 250 copies, is priced at £35, plus postage and shipping.
Here is the Foreword to this new book:
Postings will commence in early May, 2022 when we expect to receive the slipcases.
Shipping weight: 1.025 kilograms.
News
March 2022
We are delighted to bring forth A Pentalogy of Golf Architecture Classics from the Archives at Grant Books Ltd in celebration of our Fiftieth Anniversary, 1971-2021.
This boxed set comprises five volumes, four of which are facsimile re-sets of golf architecture classics by Aleck Bauer (1913), Messrs H.S. Colt and C.H. Alison (1920), Dr Alister Mackenzie (1920), and Messrs H.N. Wethered and T. Simpson (1929). Volume five is an original copy of the important annotated bibliography of the literature of golf course design by Messrs Geoffrey S. Cornish and Michael J. Hurdzan (2006).
We extend again our gratitude to those friends who contributed excellent assistance and expert commentary to the initial Grant Books Ltd re-publications:
Volume I Hazards (Grant:1993)
Peter Thomson CBE, Fred Hawtree, Peter Dobereiner, Philip A. Truett
Volume II Some Essays on Golf-Course Architecture (Grant:1993) Geoffrey S. Cornish, Fred Hawtree
Volume III Dr. Mackenzie’s Golf Architecture (Grant:1982) Robert Trent Jones, Peter Thomson CBE, Michael Wolveridge
Volume IV The Architectural Side of Golf (Grant:1995) Arthur Hills
Volume V Golf Course Design (Grant:2006)
Bob Labbance, Gil Hanse, Paul Fullmer, Chad Ritterbusch
We express fond admiration and respect for Bob and Shirley Grant for the nurture and standards they brought to their eponymous endeavors over many years to benefit the Library of Golf. We are grateful for the expertise and patience of Alan and Andy Hughes at Hughes & Company to help produce A Pentalogy of Golf Architecture Classics.
Limited edition 300 copies, illustrated, acid-free paper, PUR-bound, hard slipcase.
Price is £65, plus postage and shipping.
Shipping weight: 3.175kg.
News
March 2022
For many years we have enjoyed the friendship of Australian golf author Paul Daley and we have admired his several golf publications, each important in the Library of Golf: Links Golf: The Inside Story (2000), The Sandbelt: Melbourne’s Golfing Heaven (2001), the multi-volume Golf Architecture: A Worldwide Perspective (2002-), Favorite Holes by Design: The Architect’s Choice (2004) and Ben Hogan: The Yardstick of Golfing Greatness (2017).
Recently Mr Daley has published a comprehensive and excellent volume about Seve Ballesteros. Here is Paul’s description of his newest effort:
Seve: The People’s Champion celebrates the life of Severiano Ballesteros Sota, a leading candidate for one of the most popular and charismatic golfers ever to play at the highest level. Seve was also among the game’s most-skilled.
The book covers Seve’s key life developments, both in written and pictorial form. He had an unquenchable love of sports, yet it was caddying that dominated his formative years—all the while honing his playing skills and dreaming of becoming a world champion golfer.
Seve turned professional at age sixteen, bereft of an amateur pedigree, joining the pay-for-play ranks with a burning desire to win. His colossal impact on the European Tour is explored, as is the obsessional path Seve adopted in becoming the world’s top-ranked golfer.
Learn how Seve coped with compulsory Spanish military training, a chronic back condition and travelling to continents on a mission of collecting golf titles. Like many famous sportspeople, Seve’s trajectory to the top was not plain sailing. Tales of Seve’s audacious shotmaking, trick-shot artistry and legendary powers of recovery from any part of the golf course, only enhance fond memories of his uncommon genius.
Seve’s play in the major championships receives broad coverage, as does his inspirational play in the Ryder Cup competition between the USA and Europe. Seve’s level of pride in the fiery biennial environment set a new benchmark, while the partnership with José María Olazábal in fourball and foursomes matches produced a win/loss ratio that has never been approached. To some, Seve was the Ryder Cup!
Seve lived an action-packed life, reflected by the book’s coverage of his tournaments, golf exhibitions, golf course design work, relationship with fellow players, the Seve Trophy, the Royal Trophy and much more.
Seve: The People’s Champion also references Seve’s life in retirement after 2007 that cruelly wasn’t long enough to fulfill various aspirations. As Billy Foster, one of Seve’s favourite caddies, declares: ‘There will never be another Seve!’
Book and ordering details
-
Extent: 320 pages, approximately 100,000 words and 280 photographs
-
Format: Leatherbound (A4) limited edition of 1000 copies with numbered certificates
-
Price (within Australia): $240, postage inclusive
-
Price (outside Australia): $290, postage inclusive
Grant Books Ltd is delighted to bring Paul Daley’s exciting new publication to your attention. Orders can easily be made by contacting fswing@bigpond.net.au.
D M Wilson, III
Publisher
Grant Books Ltd
News
November 2021
We have recently published for the United States Golf Association Foundation Swing Time: A Celebration of Golf and Music 1870-1939. The authors are two well-known and highly-respected golf historians, Dr. Rand Jerris and Peter Lewis, who also are excellent collaborators. This unique and important new entry in the Library of Golf is 324 pages, which includes a comprehensive Bibliography and Index, together with profuse colour illustrations. The book is printed on acid-free paper with an illustrated dust jacket in a limited edition of 1500 copies.
The USGA’s Announcement for Swing Time includes the description:
From the 1870s until the start of the Second World War, leading American and British composers and lyricists created a profusion of songs and sheet music with golf themes. Though largely unknown today, a thriving tradition of golf music led to the publication of more than 600 golf songs during these decades. Once hugely popular, selling tens of thousands and in a few cases millions of copies, this remarkable corpus of golf music tells extraordinary stories about the connections between golf and popular culture.
​
Swing Time: A Celebration of Golf and Music 1870-1939 is a lavishly illustrated survey of golf music that features more than 200 golf songs, many created as stand-alone songs and some written to accompany theatrical productions and early films. Many of these songs were written by the premier composers and lyricists of the day; leading artists created the beautifully illustrated covers. The ephemeral nature of sheet music has rendered examples of golf sheet music exceedingly rare; only a single known copy survives for many of the songs featured in this volume. Most of songs highlighted in the book are published here for the first time for modern audiences.
​
Written by Dr. Rand Jerris and Peter Lewis, two of the game’s premier historians, Swing Time illuminates a rich tradition of golf music that runs long and deep, across every continent where the game is played.
​
Please note that 100% of the sale price of every copy of Swing Time will be donated to the USGA Foundation to support the mission and activities of USGA Golf Museum and Library.
The Swing Time dust jacket liners are below:
For all Swing Time order destinations to the UK and Europe, please order via Our Bookstore.
​
For all Swing Time order destinations to the US and non-Europe, please order via the USGA.
More News
October 2021
NEW PUBLICATIONS
We have published this month two new limited edition golf books, each with period illustrations and printed on acid-free paper, casebound and slipcased.
​
A Golfing Idyll, by the pseudonymous Violet Flint, is the first publication. It commemorates the 50th Anniversary of Grant Books, founded by Bob and Shirley Grant in 1971 as a source for quality used golf books, by re-printing in new typeset A Golfing Idyll, the first publishing event by the Grants, produced in 1978. This new volume in 250 copies features a splendid Introduction and careful Annotations by David Hamilton, a renowned Glaswegian surgeon, now resident in St Andrews, himself a highly-respected research authority on golf’s history and a noted golf book publisher through many years. It is an excellent addition to one’s golf library and complements well prior editions.
The second publication in 175 copies is Letters on Golf, by the pseudonymous ‘A Parish Minister’, produced in 1889. We are aware of less than a handful of original copies of this set of golf essays, sited on the linksland at Lossiemouth on the Moray Firth in Scotland and authored with homage to Horace G. Hutchinson’s Hints on the Game of Golf, first published in 1886. This remarkably rare original publication can now be in its Grant Books Ltd form an important volume in one’s golf library.
News
October 2021
ROYAL DORNOCH MEMORIES
We are pleased to announce our recent publication in collaboration with Royal Dornoch Golf Club.
Royal Dornoch Memories combines in one volume in re-set typeface the two splendid stapled-booklets authored by a Dornoch ‘favorite son’, Donald Grant (1889-1982): Donald Ross of Pinehurst & Royal Dornoch (1973) and Personal Memories of Royal Dornoch Golf Club 1900-1925 (1985, posthumously), both long out-of-print.
​
​
Our new publication, on behalf of Royal Dornoch, has the added feature of stunning recent photographs of the Championship Course from the Club’s archives together with an extensive Appendix featuring essays and a poem from classic sources in the Library of Golf from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Also, with the kind permission of Bill Scheft, a nephew of the late Herbert Warren Wind, the legendary American golf writer, we have included parts of Mr. Wind’s memorable essay, ‘North to the Links of Dornoch’, published in 1964. Here are the appended contents:
​
​
The prefatory material includes a Letter from the Royal Dornoch Captain-elect Willie MacKay, a Foreword by Donald Grant’s grand-nephew Alan Grant, and an Introduction by the Publisher. The volume is priced at £15 and is printed in 1000 copies on acid-free paper at 210 pages bound in card covers with a card-cover slipcase.
An anonymous Royal Dornoch member funded this project with the stipulation that all proceeds would be dedicated to “The Dr John Macleod Caddie Fund at Royal Dornoch Golf Club”.
Book orders are exclusively available directly from the Club by accessing this link:
​
https://royaldornochproshop.com/product/royal-dornoch-memories/
News
March 2021
NEW PUBLICATIONS
We have published this month three new limited edition golf books, each with period illustrations, printed on acid-free paper, casebound and slip-cased.
The first publication is Some Golf in 1897, a companion to our recent Some Golf in 1888.
​
The second publication is The Haunted Major, Robert Marshall’s 1902 fantasy and satire set at the Old Course at St Andrews with the original illustrations by Harry Furniss. Our limited edition is special as good friend Dr David Hamilton, the esteemed Glaswegian surgeon and noted golf book publisher resident in St Andrews, has provided a fascinating and fulsome Introduction and savvy annotations to the text.
​
The third publication is a series of golfing selections from St Andrews Ancient and Modern, written in 1870 by W. de Aula, the pseudonym for Scotsman Hall Maxwell. We are aware of only two copies of the original publication, and we include several of that book’s unique illustrations.
​
​
News
January 2021
PUBLICATIONS FORTHCOMING
We are pleased to advise you of four new limited edition golf books that we shall be publishing in early 2021 for our Bookstore.
​
The first publication is Some Golf in 1897, an important companion to our recent Some Golf in 1888. The volume at 170 pages with period monochrome and colour illustrations will be casebound, printed on acid- free paper and slip-cased.
The second publication is excerpted from the very rare (we know of only two original copies extant) St Andrews Ancient and Modern, authored in 1870 by W. de Aula, the pseudonym for Scotsman Hall Maxwell. The volume at 32 pages with period monochome and colour illustrations will be casebound, printed on acid- free paper and slip-cased.
The third publication is The Haunted Major, a novel by Robert Marshall, first published in 1902. Similar to the de Aula work above, The Haunted Major is an amusing fantasy and satire set at the Old Course. This edition is special as Dr David Hamilton, a Glaswegian and St Andrean surgeon and noted golf book publisher, provides a fulsome introduction and important annotations to the text, displaying much about the Old Course and its colourful and gossipy local St Andrews golfing community more than one hundred years ago. The volume at 92 pages with delightful, original, monochrome illustrations by Harry Furniss will be casebound, printed on acid-free paper and slip-cased.
The fourth publication will be a bit of a surprise from the late 1880's.
Early in 2021 we shall communicate more comprehensive descriptions of these four publications and the timing of their releases.
News
May 2020
GRANT BOOKS - A NEW CHAPTER
Bob Grant has retired nearly fifty years after founding Grant Books, a well known publisher of limited edition golf books. Bob’s colleague and friend, D. M. Wilson, the new publisher at Grant Books Ltd, looks forward to continuing Bob’s high standards serving the company’s clientele from its offices in the United Kingdom.
​
Legacy and Continuity
In 1971, Grant Books commenced in Worcestershire, England a book business focused exclusively upon entries in the library of golf. Not long after the business began to thrive, Bob and Shirley Grant expanded into publishing limited edition golf books, where their success was immediate, whether as classics in facsimile, club centenary books, new material from the many facets of the golfing world, or important limited editions for The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews. From the first publication in 1978, The Golfing Idyll, by Violet Flint (pseudonym for Col. J.E. Thompson), whatever the golf subject has been, the Grant Books quality for editing, printing, illustrating, binding, and precision has been at a high standard. Bob always has sold his books at a fair price and they have often been described as “modern classics”. And now, the last of more than one hundred different limited editions has been recently published, Some Golf in 1888.
​
What an extraordinary contribution Bob and Shirley have made to the golf book world. All of us, many of whom, initially clients and now friends, shall miss them. “Bravo!” for a job done well.
​
Grant Books Ltd will be carried forward as a publisher of fine limited edition golf books, adhering to the character present at the founding of Grant Books, and enduring as a publisher with the continuing high standard of its typesetter Hughes & Company in Pershore, England and its printer and binder Henry Ling Ltd in Dorchester, England.
​
​
D M Wilson, III
Publisher
Grant Books Ltd
May 2020