Boarhound, German mastiff or tiger mastiff? The giant breed arrives in the English ring, and nobody can agree what to call it.

Boarhound, German mastiff or tiger mastiff? The giant breed arrives in the English ring, and nobody can agree what to call it.

The Great Dane - A Dog Anthology reprints the breed chapters from four period works, among them James Watson's The Dog Book (1906), Herbert Compton's The Twentieth Century Dog (1904), W. D. Drury's British Dogs and Rawdon B. Lee's Modern Dogs. Lee describes the name being adopted to cover the boarhounds and German mastiffs alike, the special classes at Birmingham in 1884, the founding of the breed club, and the all-Dane show at the Ranelagh Club in June 1885 - with the measured heights of the giants of the day set against a standard of 30 to 35 inches.

Arthur Wardle's drawings and the original photographs are reproduced throughout, alongside the points, the temperament and the pedigrees of the leading winners.

This edition features:

• The breed chapters from four landmark Victorian and Edwardian kennel works

• The naming argument, the early classes and the founding of the breed club, told by contemporaries

• Recorded heights and weights of the great dogs of the 1880s, against the standard of the day

• Arthur Wardle's drawings and period photographs, reproduced from the original volumes