Memories of My Life at the College Valley

After nearly fifty years as MFH and huntsman of England's College Valley Hunt, Martin Letts retired only when he could no longer follow his hounds through the steep rocky country in the northern hills of England. In his new memoir, Letts recalls how he bred and trained the formidable hounds that eagerly hunted this challenging countryside and would become the basis of numerous English and American packs.

But Letts also recalls a host of passionate people with whom he's spent many days in the hunting field, sometimes in their best moments and sometimes in moments they'd rather forget.

C. Martin Wood, MFH of the Live Oak Hounds in Florida, writes an Introduction that sets the scene for the memories that follow. "This treatise is a great example of knowledge meeting pen and paper. It will stand the tests of time as a way for the 'expert,' as well as the novice, to get a grasp of the issues to be faced when building, developing, and hunting a cracking pack of foxhounds," writes Wood.

Martin Letts's Memories of My Life at the College Valley has been edited by John Strassburger, for twenty years the editor of The Chronicle of the Horse and now its Foxhunting editor.