Cricket, Literature and Culture Symbolising the Nation, Destabilising Empire Anthony Bateman CRICKET, LITERATURE AND CULTURE To my father, and in memory of my mother Cricket, Literature and Culture Symbolising the Nation, Destabilising Empire ANTHONY BATEMAN De Montfort University, UK First published 2009 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 2009 Anthony Bateman All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Anthony Bateman has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Bateman, Anthony. Cricket, literature and culture : symbolising the nation, destabilising empire. 1.Cricket in literature. 2. Cricket – Press coverage – Great Britain – History – 19th century. 3. Cricket – Press coverage – Great Britain – History – 20th century. 4. Cricket stories – History and criticism. 5. Cricket – Social aspects – Great Britain – History – 19th century. 6. Cricket – Social aspects – Great Britain – History–20th century. I. Title 820.9’3579’09034-dc22 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bateman, Anthony, 1966– Cricket, literature and culture : symbolising the nation, destabilising empire / by Anthony Bateman. p.cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-0-7546-6537-3 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7546-9699-5 (ebook) 1. English literature—20th century—History and criticism. 2. Sports in literature. 3. English literature—19th century—History and criticism. 4. Cricket in literature. 5. National characteristics, British, in literature. 6. Commonwealth literature (English)— History and criticism. I. Title. PR478.S66B38 2009 820.9’0091—dc22 2009019702 ISBN 9780754665373 (hbk) ISBN 9781315574769 (ebk) Contents List of Figures vii Permissions ix Acknowledgements xi Introduction: Writing the Cricket Field 1 1 ‘More Mighty Than the Bat, the Pen […]’: Culture, Hegemony and the Literaturisation of Cricket 15 2 ‘England Over’?: Cricket and Literature in the Inter-War Years 55 3 ‘Guilty, m’lud, to fiction […]’: Neville Cardus and Cultural Crisis 95 4 Cricket, Literature and Empire 1850–1939 121 5 ‘From Far it Look Like Politics’: C.L.R. James and the Canon 157 6 ‘The Play is a Poem’? 197 Bibliography 205 Index 229 This page has been left blank intentionally List of Figures i.1 A.C. MacLaren. Source: The David Frith Collection. 9 i.2 Maurice Tate. Source: The David Frith Collection. 10 1.1 William Blake, ‘The Echoing Green’ from Songs of Innocence and Experience (1820s). 22 1.2 Drawing of Dingley Dell versus All Muggleton cricket match by R.W. Buss. Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers (1836–37), (London, 1999), p. 102. 29 1.3 Frontispiece to the first book of cricket technique, Thomas Boxall’s Rules and Instructions for Playing at the Game of Cricket (1801). Source: E.V. Lucas, The Hambledon Men. 31 1.4 ‘The Conversation During The Match’. Illustration by Arthur Hughes for Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown’s Schooldays (London: 1869), facing p. 351. 32 1.5 W.G. Grace. Source: C.B. Fry, The Great Batsmen: Their Methods at a Glance, (London, 1905), p. 112. 38 1.6 ‘Two Gentlemen of Warwickshire’. Drawing by F.H. Townsend. Source: Punch, 6 September 1911. Reproduced with permission of Punch Ltd., www.punch.co.uk. 49 1.7 ‘Spoiling Sport [Most of our prominent cricketers are now engaged as expert reporters by various journals]’. Drawing by Bernard Partridge. Source: Punch, 18 May 1904. Reproduced with permission of Punch Ltd., www.punch.co.uk. 53 2.1 ‘The Ghosts’. Source: Douglas Moffat, Crickety Cricket (1897), p. 87. Reproduced by permission of The University of Manchester John Rylands Library. 63 2.2 J.M. Barrie (in waistcoat) with the Australian cricketers Charlie Macartney, Jack Ellis and Arthur Mailey. Source: The David Frith Collection. 65 2.3 James Thorpe’s illustration of The Bat and Ball Inn, Hambledon, followed by a passage from Nyren. Source: James Thorpe, A Cricket Bag, p. 134. Reproduced with permission of the University of Manchester, the John Rylands University Library. 75 2.4 The distribution of places where cricket matches are mentioned in Alan Ross, The Penguin Cricketer’s Companion (London: Penguin, 1981). Source: John Bale, Landscapes of Modern Sport, p. 161. By kind permission of Continuum. 77 viii Cricket, Literature and Culture 2.5 ‘A model of the mythical English cricket landscape’. Source: John Bale, Landscapes of Modern Sport, p. 158. By kind permission of Continuum. 79 2.6 Transport & General Workers’ Union recruitment poster, 1934. By kind permission of TUC Library Collections, London Metropolitan University. 91 3.1 Cricket Week at Hudson’s bookshop in Birmingham, 1934. Source: David Frith, Pageant of Cricket (London, 1987), p. 333: The David Frith Collection. 100 3.2 The contrast between the ‘orthodox’ and the ‘two-eyed’ or ‘two- shouldered’ stance. Source: F.A.H. Henley, The Boy’s Book of Cricket (London, 1924), p. 10. Reproduced by permission of the University of Manchester, the John Rylands University Library. 105 3.3 The Correct Finish Of An Off Drive. Source: Henley, p. 60. Reproduced by permission of the University of Manchester, the John Rylands University Library. 106 3.4 The Wrong Finish Of An Off Drive. Source: Henley, p. 61. Reproduced by permission of University of Manchester, the John Rylands University Library. 107 3.5 ‘Style Is A Great Deal, If Not Everything’. Illustration from E.H.D. Sewell, Cricket Under Fire (London, 1943), facing p. 192. 109 3.6 Frank Woolley on his own threshold in Kent, 1944. Source: E.H.D. Sewell, Who Won The Toss? (London: 1944), facing p. 81. 112 4.1 Fred Lillywhite’s scoring tent and press. Source: David Rayvern Allen, Early Books on Cricket, p. 93. 133 4.2 ‘Spy’s’ drawing of Ranjitsinhji (1897). Source: Neville Cardus, English Cricket (London: 1945), facing p. 65. 137 4.3 Douglas Jardine’s reconfiguration of the cricket field. Source: Pelham Warner, Cricket Between The Wars (London: Chatto & Windus, 1942), p. 127. 150 5.1 A.E. Morton comments on the West Indies’ heavy defeat to a W.G. Grace XI in the first match of their 1906 tour. Source: J. Williams, Cricket and Race. Reproduced by kind permission of Gerry Wolstenholme. 159 5.2 Cartoon of C.B. Fry. Source: Iain Wilton, C.B. Fry: An English Hero p. 194. By kind permission of Roger Mann. 184 5.3 Learie Constantine. Source: Learie Constantine, Cricket and I, p. 118. 191 Permissions Extracts from Beyond a Boundary are reproduced by permission of the Estate of C.L.R. James. Passages from The C.L.R. James Reader appear with the permission of Curtis Brown Group Ltd, London on behalf of the Estate of C.L.R. James. Permission for the reproduction of quotations has also been obtained from Punch, the Estate of Ford Madox Ford, The Provost and Scholars of King’s College, Cambridge and The Society of Authors as the Literary Representatives of the Estates of E.M. Forster and Virginia Woolf. Quotations from the work of Wyndham Lewis appear by kind permission of the Wyndham Lewis Memorial Trust (a registered charity). Every effort has been to made to contact the literary estate of Dudley Carew and the body or individual responsible for granting permission to reproduce the cricket writings of Sir Neville Cardus.