Research Catalog

Title

Start of play : cricket and culture in eighteenth- century England / David Underdown.

Author

Underdown, David.

Publication

London : Allen Lane, 2000.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xx, 257 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

"In this book cricket is seen not as a pastime distinct from other kinds of human activity, but as part of the local and national life which surrounded it, often crossing class boundaries in a remarkable way. Lord John Sackville played alongside plebeian cricketers in London in front of huge crowds who paid for admission; his son, the third Duke of Dorset, appeared regularly at Hambledon, rubbing shoulders with the rural craftsmen and labourers who made the team so famous. Underdown has recovered the lives of an extraordinary variety of individuals of all classes, who combine to create the rich landscape of eighteenth-century cricket. The result is one of the liveliest and most intelligent books about what used to be our national sport to have appeared in many years."--Jacket.

Subjects

• Cricket
• England
• 1700-1799
• History
• Manners and customs
• England > Social life and customs > 18th century
• Cricket > England > History > 18th century

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 214-[242]) and index.

Contents

Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations -- List of Illustrations -- Preface -- 1 Cricket and Culture: the Prehistory (starting p. 1) -- 2 'Good Old English Entertainments': Village Games in the Eighteenth Century (starting p. 22) -- 3 Peers, Patrons and Professionals (starting p. 46) -- 4 Cricket in Metropolitan Culture (starting p. 74) -- 5 Hambledon: the Players and the Community (starting p. 97) -- 6 Hambledon: the Club and the Patrons (starting p. 125) -- 7 The MCC and the Decline of Hambledon (starting p. 152) -- 8 The Hambledon Club's Last Years (starting p. 177) -- Epilogue: Beyond Hambledon (starting p. 206) -- Notes (starting p. 214) -- Note on Sources (starting p. 239) -- Index (starting p. 243).

ISBN

• 0713993308
• 9780713993301

LCCN

2001326065

OCLC

• ocm44484877
• 44484877
• SCSB-1142917

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library