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[8], 32 pp. [a]-b2, A-H2. 24.5x19.5 cm. (9¾x7¾"), pale blue wrappers, bound in 19th/early 20th century half morocco & marbled boards, spine lettered in gilt. Third Edition.

Very rare third edition of the first separately printed book devoted wholly to the game of golf, the cornerstone of any premier golf library. This is one of three 18th century editions, the first being published in 1743, and  the second in 1763. This 1793 third edition, misidentified on the title-page as the second edition, is scarcer than the first edition. There are nine copies of the first edition listed in OCLC/WorldCat, and only two of the third edition, both in Scottish institutions (Edinburgh University Library and the National Library of Scotland). No copies of the second edition are listed in OCLC/WorldCat. The United States Golf Association's facsimile reprint of the three editions gives a slightly different census, listing ten copies of the 1743 edition, three copies of the 1763 edition, and two copies of the 1793 edition, at the National Library of Scotland and the USGA Library. Furthermore, it notes that the USGA is the only institution known to possess copies of all three editions. Only three copies of this third edition have sold at auction since 1975, according to American Book Prices Current. The poem itself, of 358 lines in 3 cantos, is a picaresque description of a match between two golfers played at the five-hole links at Leith. The protagonists are “Pygmalion” (the author) and “Castilio” (Alexander Dunning, of Edinburgh, a bookseller, thought by C.B. Clapcott to be Mathison’s brother-in-law). It was not until some 80 years after the first publication of The Goff that the second work solely devoted to golf was produced, The Rules of the Thistle Club, published in 1824. Joseph Murdoch, premier golf book collector, wrote of The Goff “Standing alone in a century of silence, the first book entirely devoted to golf was published in 1743, more that twenty years after Glotta [James Arbuckle’s 1721 poem with mention of golf) and ninety years before another book would appear. It, too, is poetry, and one of the classics of golf literature. The ultimate that any collector can attain is to have one of its three editions in his library.” The author of The Goff, Thomas Mathison, was a law clerk who later turned to golf, poetry, and the Presbyterian ministry; he died in 1754. Donovan & Jerris notes " A dedication added to the extremely rare 1793 edition published by Peter Hill - 'To All the Lovers of Goff, in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America...' - suggests that the game had spread well beyond the British Isles by the close of the eighteenth century." Murdoch, The Library of Golf, 503; Donovan & Murdoch  380; Donovan & Jerris M13120. In custom-made half morroco & cloth folding box.