MIDDLEBURG, Va. –  Author Julie Campbell will lecture and sign copies of her new book, The Horse in Virginia: An Illustrated History, on Friday, March 19 at 7 p.m., at the National Sporting Library. The booksigning will be the first public event launching the book’s publication through University of Virginia Press.

Campbell is the associate director of communications and public affairs at Washington and Lee University, in Lexington, Va. Hers is the first book to cover the complete history of the horse in the Old Dominion, and much of the research was undertaken at the NSL. Virginia’s horse tradition goes back 400 years to the first settlement at Jamestown. Since then, the state’s special relationship with the horse has never waned. Virginia has been known for centuries for its production of Thoroughbred racehorses and as the birthplace of the native Quarter Horse breed.  The state has also produced many famous individual horses, including the great Triple Crown champion Secretariat and Misty of Chincoteague, one of the most beloved animals in children’s literature.

The most significant figures in the Commonwealth’s history have almost invariably enjoyed a special bond with horses, from George Washington—whom Thomas Jefferson called “the best horseman of his age”—to Robert E. Lee, who rode into battle on his well-known gray, Traveller. This tradition has continued into the present day, when horse farms are still a proud feature of the Virginia countryside and famed equestrians such as David and Karen O’Connor have represented their state and their country in the Olympics.

Campbell was raised in Santa Fe, N.M., and earned a B.A. in history from Arizona State University and an M.A. in history from the University of Arizona. She began her publishing career in Denver, Colo., working for a variety of magazines. From 1987 to 1994, she was an editor of books and a journal at the Arizona Historical Society, in Tucson. She moved to Richmond, Va., in 1994, when she became the editor of Virginia Cavalcade, the illustrated magazine of history at the Library of Virginia.

Campbell is the primary author of Studies in Arizona History, a high-school textbook published in 1998 by the Arizona Historical Society, and has contributed articles and book reviews to journals, newspapers, and books including Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, the Dictionary of Virginia Biography, the Journal of Arizona History, the Bloomsbury Review, and Virginia Libraries.

Admission to the lecture is free, but seating is limited. RSVP to Judy Sheehan at 540-687-6542 x 10 or jsheehan@nsl.org and leave a name & contact number. Copies of The Horse in Virginia will be available for sale. The National Sporting Library is located at 102 The Plains Rd., in Middleburg. For more information and directions, visit the NSL’s website at www.nsl.org.

The National Sporting Library and Fine Art Museum  is a non-lending research center for horse and field sports. It is open to the public and admission is free.  Its 17,000-book collection covers a wide range of horse and field sports, including foxhunting, Thoroughbred racing, dressage, eventing, steeplechasing, polo, coaching, shooting, and angling. Over 4,000 rare books from the sixteenth century onwards are housed in the F. Ambrose Clark Rare Book Room. In addition to books, the Library owns important manuscript, archives, and periodicals relating to field sports, and also features an audiovisual collection that includes films, videos, and DVDs. The John H. Daniels Fellowship program supports the research of visiting scholars. The Library hosts temporary exhibitions and holds many fine works of sporting art, including paintings, sculpture, and works-on-paper in its permanent collection. The Fine Art Museum will open in 2011 on  the Library campus  in the historic Vine Hill mansion, with 11 galleries featuring temporary exhibits and the Museum’s  permanent collection of American & European fine sporting art.