The great romantic

: Cricket and the golden age of Neville Cardus

by Duncan Hamilton

25th July, 2019

£20.00 ~~£20.00~~ Save 0% | Hardback

Qty

Available, usually dispatched within 4 days
Add to Wish List

WINNER OF WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

Duncan Hamilton is already a multiple award-winning sports writer, but it is hard to imagine he will write a better book than this superb, elegiac portrait of the sociable, feted, but ultimately unknowable, man who virtually invented modern sports writing...This is writing every bit the equal of Cardus himself. - Daily Mail

'Hamilton is a worthy biographer... as much sublime writing comes from his keyboard as from Cardus's pen.' The Times

'With its verve, insight and generosity of sympathy, this is by some way the best full-length life of a cricket writer, perhaps even of any sports writer.' Guardian

Neville Cardus described how one majestic stroke-maker 'made music' and 'spread beauty' with his bat. Between two world wars, he became the laureate of cricket by doing the same with words.

In The Great Romantic, award-winning author Duncan Hamilton demonstrates how Cardus changed sports journalism for ever. While popularising cricket - while appealing, in Cardus' words to people who 'didn't know a leg-break from the pavilion cat at Lord's'- he became a star in his own right with exquisite phrase-making, disdain for statistics and a penchant for literary and musical allusions.

Among those who venerated Cardus were PG Wodehouse, John Arlott, Harold Pinter, JB Priestley and Don Bradman. However, behind the rhapsody in blue skies, green grass and colourful characters, this richly evocative biography finds that Cardus' mother was a prostitute, he never knew his father and he received negligible education. Infatuations with younger women ran parallel to a decidedly unromantic marriage. And, astonishingly, the supreme stylist's aversion to factual accuracy led to his reporting on matches he never attended.

Yet Cardus also belied his impoverished origins to prosper in a second class-conscious profession, becoming a music critic of international renown. The Great Romantic uncovers the dark enigma within a golden age.

Duncan Hamilton is a journalist who has won two William Hill Sports Book of the Year Prizes. He has been nominated on a further four occasions. He has also claimed two British Sports Book Awards and is the only writer to have won the Wisden Cricket Book of the Year on three occasions. His biography of the Chariots of Fire runner Eric Liddell, For the Glory, was a New York Times bestseller. He most recently collaborated with Jonny Bairstow on the cricketer's autobiography, A Clear Blue Sky.

He lives at the foot of the Yorkshire Dales.

Details & Specs

Author: Duncan Hamilton

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Format: Hardback

ISBN: 9781473661837

Publication Date: 25th July, 2019

Pages: 370

Dimensions: 243 x 162 x 36 mm

Notes: illustrations (black and white)

Availability: Available, usually dispatched within 4 days

Customer Reviews

There are currently no reviews for this book. Be the first to review by clicking below!

Review this book...

This website uses cookies. More info. Okay