This collection gathered by the great book dealer, Jeff Dykes, totals some 25,000 volumes relating to cattle, horses, sheep, and the landscapes in which they can be found.  A combination of rare material and current volumes, pamphlets, and journals, the collection also contains the archives of Dykes’ rare book business and the correspondence of the legendary cattle magnate Charles Goodnight.  With an extensive collection of artwork, including paintings by Tom Lea and José Cisneros, sculpture by Frederick Remington, and a colored print inscribed by J. Frank Dobie.

Sample highlights of the collection:

Cox, James.  Historical and Biographical Record of the Cattle Industry and the Cattlemen of Texas and Adjacent Territory.  Saint Louis: Woodward and Tiernan, 1895.  A wealth of information about the cattle industry, and a rarity due to the majority of the first edition being destroyed in a warehouse fire.

Freeman, James W.  Prose and Poetry of the Livestock Industry of the United States.  Denver and Kansas City: National Live Stock Association, 1905.  Cushing Library’s One Millionth Volume (1976).  Known to be “the most desired and desirable book on the range cattle Industry.”

Garrard, George.  A Description of the Different Varieties of Oxen.  London: J. Smeeton, 1800.  With 52 hand-colored plates.

Siringo, Charles A.  A Texas Cowboy: or, Fifteen Years on the Hurricane Deck of a Spanish Pony.  Chicago: Umbdenstock, 1885.  The first autobiography of a cowboy.

[image collections: Prose and Poetry; scan of oxen; Lea’s kineno]