1891 The Boy's Own Bookshelf- Indoor Games and Recreations. Illustrated

Edited by G.A. Hutchison and published by The Religious Tract Society, London in 1891, this is a 592 page "New Edition, revised and Enlarged - with over seven hundred illustrations"    The book is 170mm x 215mm x 50mm.

The book is divided into 11 sections.  Section 1 - Gymnastics, Indian Clubs, Dumbbells and Juggling with Balls - how to use the various apparatus as well as make them.    Section 11 - Model-Making, Moving and Otherwise - how to make model boats, steam engines, locomotives, steam fire-engines, etc.    Section III - Games of Skill - Chess, Double Chess, Draughts, Solitaire, Fanorona and others.    Section IV - Magic Lanterns - how to make them and slides as well as an Aphengescope.    Section V - How to Build Boats, Punts, Canoes etc.     Section VI - Pleasant and Profitable Occupations for Spare Hours - Hints on taxidermy, hints on polishing horn, bone, shells, stones etc.  Graphs and graph making, cryptography, hammock-making, perpetual calendars, telephones, sundails and the camera obscura.    Section VII - Cardboard modelling and Wood modelling- banjos, telescopes, kaleidoscopes, compasses and timepieces etc.  Section VIII - Musical Instruments - how to make and play them.   Section IX - Electricity and How to use it in play and Earnest.   Section X - Conjurers and Conjuring, Ventriloquism and Spiritualism etc.   Section XI - Diversified Diversions - Fire and Gas Balloons, how to make and use them,  Model balloons, all about them and how to make them, Smudgeography and many other things.

The book is in good condition for its age. There are patches of discolouration on the front two pages and the back two but internally the pages are virtually unmarked.   Pages are gold edged and there are a few pages with slightly bent corners. There is a slight parting of the cover from the pages in front but no loose pages. 

The front cover illustrations are raised and gold coloured with hardly any discernible wear.