The sport of cricket has long held a special place in Anglophone culture, and a specialised niche in English literature. Cricket is the official summer sport in England, and it is widely known as the "gentleman's game", owing to the unique culture of the sport and its emphasis on ideals such as grace, sportsmanship, character and complexity. Cricket has therefore often attracted the attention (and in some cases, fandom) of the literati – Lamb, Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt were all players of the game – and some of the greatest English writers have written about cricket. This was particularly true in the era before the Second World War, for example, during the Edwardian era, and in the 1920s and 1930s.
An early chapter of Dickens's famous first novel The Pickwick Papers, serialised as early as 1836, features a brief description of a cricket match between the All-Muggleton team and the Dingley Dell Cricket Club. Mr Pickwick watches as Mr Jingle provides a running commentary on the game ("Capital game—smart sport—fine exercise—very" is a typical Jingle comment.)
Cricket also plays a prominent part in Tom Brown's Schooldays (1857), Thomas Hughes' classic novel of life at Rugby. A century after Hughes's book, the school's bully Flashman (and his cricket career) were resurrected by the novelist George MacDonald Fraser (see below). Anthony Trollope also wrote occasionally about cricket.
There have been several famous cricket matches in post-Victorian literature, notably the village cricket match which forms the centrepiece of A. G. Macdonell's minor classic England, Their England (1933).
Another well-known example comes from the work of Siegfried Sassoon. In 1928, Sassoon, by then a famed war poet, published Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, the first volume of his George Sherston trilogy. The book, ostensibly a novel, is in effect a lyrical love-letter from the author to his vanished Edwardian childhood, set in the dreamy English countryside. The Butley flower show match is a classic evocation of cricket on the village green.
Cricket played a role in the Lord Peter Wimsey novels of Dorothy Sayers. There are numerous references to Wimsey's achievements as a cricket blue at Oxford, and an extensive description of a game of cricket is a crucial element in solving the murder in Murder Must Advertise (1933).
Another writer from this period is Hugh de Sélincourt. He wrote two novels with cricket as their subject – The Cricket Match (1924) is better known than its successor The Game of the Season (1935). Oxford University Press reprinted both these books in the early 1980s.
The novel Son of Grief by Dudley Carew (1936) was rated highly by John Arlott. He wrote: It has its darknesses, but it is convincing, and its characters are rounded and credible.[1]
The great humorist P. G. Wodehouse was an avid fan of the game and a dedicated player as well – winning admiration for his medium paced bowling.[2] Cricket is central to the plot of his novel Mike (1909) and its sequels including Psmith in the City (1910), which feature talented cricketer Michael "Mike" Jackson and his friend Psmith, also revealed to be a talented player. Wodehouse's cricketing companions included J. M. Barrie, Hugh de Selincourt and Arthur Conan Doyle, playing for either the "Punch XI" or the Allahakbarries, whose name, said Barrie, derived from the Arabic invocation meaning "Heaven help us".[3] (This is technically incorrect as the meaning of the Arabic phrase Allahu Akbar is God is great.) Cricket popped up frequently in his novels and short stories, and the anthology Wodehouse at the Wicket, edited by Murray Hedgcock, is an attempt to capture the Master's writings about his favourite sport.
Bruce Hamilton wrote the novel Pro: An English tragedy in 1946.[4] Also in 1946 came The Devil in Woodford Wells, a novel by Harold Hobson (1946).[5]
William Godfrey (a pseudonym of Sam Youd) wrote the first two novels of what had been intended to be a trilogy: The Friendly Game (1956) and Malleson at Melbourne (1957).[5]
In the 1960s, Leslie Frewin edited a couple of anthologies of literary cricket (including both short stories and extracts from novels) under the title The Best of Cricket's Fiction.
A Season in Sinji (1967) by J.L. Carr is a novel mainly set at a fictional RAF base in West Africa during the Second World War; it features a bizarre cricket match.
More recently, George MacDonald Fraser claimed in his novel Flashman's Lady (1977) that Harry Flashman was the first cricketer to record a "hat-trick". The caddish fictional hero participates in a cricket match at Lord's in 1842 that features some of the leading cricketers of that era – Felix, Fuller Pilch, and Alfred Mynn. (Flashman gets Felix's wicket through skill, Pilch's through luck, and Mynn's by 'knavery'.) MacDonald Fraser takes great care to describe the sights and sounds of Lord's as it was in the 1840s. Although very different from Sassoon's style, his descriptions of the cricket match and its setting often reach an idyllic beauty that fits in well with the romantic nostalgia for village cricket during much of the 20th century.
In Life, the Universe and Everything (1982), the third book in Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker series, Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect travel through the space-time continuum to Lord's, where a shocking act of cricket vandalism takes place – the Ashes trophy is stolen by a band of robber-robots from the planet Krikkit. The novel contains an alternative explanation of the genesis of the game – cricket is actually the product of a sort of "interspecies collective unconscious memory", and it is the humans who have shamelessly trivialised it into a sport.
About 50 years after the bodyline controversy, Paul Wheeler wrote a fictionalised account of that infamous series in Bodyline: The Novel (1983). Wheeler also wrote the script for the Australian mini-series Bodyline (1984).[citation needed]
Willie Rushton wrote the comic novel W.G. Grace's Last Case (1984), in which he imagined the cricketer having a side-line as a private detective.
Also in the 1980s, the writer and broadcaster Peter Tinniswood published a series of ten books on cricket, fictional and humorous in nature.
Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew by Shehan Karunatilaka (2008) (known only by the subtitle in the USA) is in large part, an exploration of Sri Lankan cricket.
In 2012 the former Derbyshire opening batsman and screenwriter Peter Gibbs wrote a novel, Settling the Score, about a fictional county match late in the 1969 season. In 2020, Nigel Hastilow wrote 'Close of Play' about a fictional limited-overs match to decide the fate of a village cricket club.
New Zealand cricket fiction
New Zealand has produced some cricket fiction (mainly works for children and young people) and two adult novels in Michael O’Leary'sOut of It (1987) and W. J. Foote's Poetry in Motion: The Tragic Tale of the Pukemanu Prodigy, New Zealand's Greatest Slow Bowler (2003).
O’Leary's cult novella presents a fictionalised one-day match between New Zealand's mid-1980s team and an Out of It XI made up of rock stars, famous artists, poets and writers.
A new edition of Out of It appeared in 2012 edited by cricket poetry anthologist Mark Pirie and published by HeadworX in Wellington, New Zealand. Pirie also lists books of New Zealand cricket fiction as an appendix sourced from Rob Franks's comprehensive bibliography of New Zealand cricket literature, Kiwi Cricket Pages (UK, c2006).
Jock Serong's The Rules of Backyard Cricket (2016), another cricket crime novel, tells the story of the rivalry between two brothers in the Melbourne suburbs who grow up to play in the Australian team.
Leslie Thomas John Arlott, was an English journalist, author and cricket commentator for the BBC's Test Match Special. He was also a poet and wine connoisseur. With his poetic phraseology, he became a cricket commentator noted for his "wonderful gift for evoking cricketing moments" by the BBC.
Rupert Psmith is a recurring fictional character in several novels by British author P. G. Wodehouse, being one of Wodehouse's best-loved characters.
Fuller Pilch was an English first-class cricketer, active from 1820 to 1854. He was a right-handed batsman who bowled at a slow pace with a roundarm action. Pilch played in a total of 229 first-class matches for an assortment of teams, but mostly for Norfolk and Kent. He is remembered as a pioneer of forward play in batting, and especially for a shot called "Pilch's poke".
This is a bibliography of literary and historical works about cricket. The list is sorted by author's name. It is inevitably highly selective. The 1984 edition of E. W. Padwick's A Bibliography of Cricket had more than 10,000 entries.
Frederick Edward Rumsey is an English former cricketer who founded the Professional Cricketers Association (PCA) in 1967. He played five Test matches for England against Australia, South Africa & New Zealand in the mid-1960s. Rumsey played county cricket for Worcestershire, Somerset and Derbyshire.
Ernest William "Jim" Swanton was an English journalist and author, chiefly known for being a cricket writer and commentator under his initials, E. W. Swanton. He worked as a sports journalist for The Daily Telegraph and as a broadcaster for BBC Radio for 30 years. He was a regular commentator on Test Match Special, easily recognised by his distinctive "fruity" voice. After "retiring" in the 1970s, he continued to write occasional articles and columns until his death in 2000.
Mike is a school story by P. G. Wodehouse, first published on 15 September 1909 by Adam & Charles Black, London. The story first appeared in the magazine The Captain, in two separate parts that were collected together in the original version of the book; the first part, originally called Jackson Junior, was republished in 1953 under the title Mike at Wrykyn, while the second half, called The Lost Lambs in its serialised version, was released as Enter Psmith in 1935 and then as Mike and Psmith in 1953. Although Mike was one of Wodehouse's earlier books, Wodehouse thought it his best work.
Psmith in the City is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published on 23 September 1910 by Adam & Charles Black, London. The story was originally released as a serial in The Captain magazine, between October 1908 and March 1909, under the title The New Fold.
Psmith, Journalist is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first released in the United Kingdom as a serial in The Captain magazine between October 1909 and February 1910, and published in book form in the UK on 29 September 1915, by Adam & Charles Black, London, and, from imported sheets, by Macmillan, New York, later that year.
Mike Jackson is a recurring fictional character in the early novels by British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being a good friend of Psmith. He appears in all the Psmith books.
William Clarke was an English cricketer and team manager who played first-class cricket from 1826 to 1855. He founded, managed and captained the All-England Eleven. He has been described as "one of certain figures who, in the history of cricket, stand like milestones along the way". Clarke was born at Nottingham and died at Wandsworth in Surrey.
Flashman's Lady is a 1977 novel by George MacDonald Fraser. It is the sixth of the Flashman novels.
Alfred Mynn was an English first-class cricketer during the game's "Roundarm Era". He was a genuine all-rounder, being both an attacking right-handed batsman and a formidable right arm fast bowler. Cricket writer John Woodcock ranked him as the fourth greatest cricketer of all time. Simon Wilde wrote of him: "The speed at which Mynn bowled... and his life-size personality captured the imagination of the public in a way no cricketer had before."
The Professional Cricketers' Association is the representative body of past and present first-class cricketers in England and Wales, founded in 1967 by former England fast bowler Fred Rumsey. In the 1970s, the PCA arranged a standard employment contract and minimum wage for professional cricketers in first-class cricket in England and Wales. In 1995 it helped create a pension scheme for cricketers, and in 2002 launched the magazine All Out Cricket, as well as the ACE UK Educational Programme
1922 was the 29th season of County Championship cricket in England. Yorkshire recovered the title and went on to win it four times in succession.
Alresford Cricket Club was one of the strongest cricket teams in England during the late 18th century. It represented the adjacent small towns of New Alresford and Old Alresford in Hampshire. According to John Arlott, between about 1770 and 1795 Alresford "stood higher in cricket than any town its size has done in the history of the game".
Basil Samuel Foster was an English actor and cricketer who played 34 first-class matches in the early 20th century. He was born in Malvern, Worcestershire, and died in Pield Heath, Hillingdon, Middlesex, aged 77. He was the inspiration for the Wodehouse character, Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright, having become a stage actor so that he could also play county cricket.
Dudley Charles Carew was an English journalist, writer, poet and film critic.
The Cricketers of My Time is a memoir of cricket, nominally written by the former Hambledon cricketer John Nyren about the players of the late 18th century, most of whom he knew personally. Nyren, who had no recognised literary skill, collaborated with the eminent Shakespearean scholar Charles Cowden Clarke to produce his work. It is believed that Cowden Clarke recorded Nyren's verbal reminiscences and so "ghosted" the text.
The Authors Cricket Club is a wandering amateur English cricket club founded in 1892 and revived most recently in 2012. Prominent British writers including Arthur Conan Doyle, P. G. Wodehouse, A. A. Milne and J. M. Barrie have been featured as players on the club team, the Authors XI.
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