Book description
W. G. Grace burst onto the cricket scene in the 1860s with
spectacular force. He dominated the game until the end of the century,
and influences it to this day. He was the world's first sporting
superstar, rivalled as a public figure only by Gladstone and Queen
Victoria herself. His staggering achievements as both batsman and
bowler made him the greatest draw cricket had ever known. Though often
depicted as an overgrown schoolboy, W. G. was extremely shrewd and
ruthlessly exploited the power his immense popularity gave him. A
notorious 'shamateur', he amassed great wealth through cricket, while
remaining the standard-bearer for the Gentlemen against the Players
for forty years. Researched in archives from Grimsby (where Grace once
scored 400) to Australia, Simon Rae's new biography offers a radical
analysis of Grace's career, and reviews the more controversial aspects
of his conduct, including verbal and physical altercations, both on
and off the field, and his kidnapping of an Australian cricketer from
Lord's. But W. G. Grace: A Life provides more than a fresh look at the
cricketer. It focuses on Grace's formative family background; his
intensely competitive relations with his two famous brothers, 'E. M.'
and Fred; his career as a doctor, and his ambitions and bereavements
as a father. Drawing on little-known diaries and letters, and unique
access to Grace's own library, Simon Rae builds up a convincing
psychological portrait of the man behind the most famous beard in
English history.
Simon Rae's award-winning W. G. Grace: A Life received widespread
acclaim on its publication in 1998. He has also edited a number of
anthologies, and for five years presented BBC Radio 4's 'Poetry
Please!'. For nearly ten years he wrote regular topical poems for the
Guardian and published two collections of them, Soft Targets and Rapid
Response. He collaborated with Ronald Searle on a book of cartoons and
poems, The Face of War, and in 1999 he won the National Poetry Prize.
His first stage play, A Quiet Night In, was produced in Bristol and
London the same year. In 1999/2000 he was poet in residence with
Warwickshire County Cricket Club and MAC at Edgbaston, and he was Royal
Literary Fund Fellow at Warwick University for 2000/2001.
