The End of the Game

Photographs and text by Peter H. Beard.

Paul Hamlyn. London. 1965. First edition. British edition. Hardback; green cloth-bound boards, dust jacket. 256 pages. Profusely illustrated with colour and black-and-white plates and numerous text illustrations. English. 290 x 215mm. 1.25kg. . Very good, in very good dust jacket; light shelf wear to jacket, some rubbing to edges, wear to forecorners and spine ends with some small tears and slight loss; some spotting to top edge, slight rubbing to edges of boards.

A first edition of Peter Beard's seminal 1965 photobook on the conservation and changing landscape of Africa. Whilst at Yale, aged just seventeen, Beard was inspired by the writings of Isak Dinesen to travel to the African continent. Over the next nine years he recorded, in his notebooks and with his camera, the transformation of the continent from 'Old to New Africa'. The End of the Game examines the changes wrought by the railways, technology, medicine, government and hunting on the African nations since the turn of the century. The changes are invariably at the expense of the natural landscape, inhabitants and wildlife. The pages have a scrapbook feel with Beard's photos and text interspersed with his own woodcuts, old engravings and native drawings. The book has been reprinted several times and the environmental questions raised in it are sadly still as pertinent as ever.

[Roth. The Book of 101 Books. p.170-1; Hasselblad. The Open Book. p. 208-9; Parr & Badger. The Photobook Vol. 1. p.209; Auer. 802 Photo Books. p.448]