Peter Pan's First XI; The Extraordinary Story of J. M. Barrie's Cricket Team

by Unknown

• ISBN13: 9780340919651
• ISBN10: 0340919655
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2010-07-01
• Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Summary

The creator ofPeter Pan, J.M. Barrie, was a hugely enthusiastic cricketer of very little talent. That didn't stop him from leading perhaps the most extraordinary amateur cricket team ever to have taken the field. Some of the twentieth century's most famous writers including A. A. Milne, P. G. Wodehouse and Jerome K. Jerome, regularly turned out for Barrie's team between 1890 and 1913. This very Edwardian vision of village cricket, what Barrie called 'green fields dotted with white figures on reasonable terms', was only brought to an end by the First World War. Those years of golden summers, full of 'contests and suppers of Homeric splendour', were recounted in Barrie's letters and journals, many revealed here for the first time. Cricket lovers will identify with Barrie's attempts to assemble a team of competent players: he notes Conan Doyle 'Knows a batsman's weakness by the colour of mud on his shoes', while aPunchcartoonist 'Bowls all over the field. No one is safe. Breaks everything except the ball'. InPeter Pan's First XI, Kevin Telfer weaves cricket, literature, history, humour and biography to create an entertaining account of this little-known band of cricketing Peter Pans and the age in which they lived. SALES POINTS There is a huge market for literary cricket books - this title will follow the sucess ofPenguins Stopped Playwhich sold over 165,000 copies through Bookscan A A Milne, Jerome K Jerome and Arthur Conan Doyle, among others, all played for the Allahakbarries and this story is full of eccentric characters and wonderful stories Kevin Telfer creates a portrait of a vanished age of golden English summers before the outbreak of the First World War, an engrossing tale for these troubled times Beautifully designed and full of archive pictures and period memorabillia,Peter Pan's First XIwil be an object to treasure This is the first time the wonderful story of cricket in Neverland has been told Published to coincide with J. M. Barrie's 150th birthday

Author Biography

Kevin Telfer is the author of The Remarkable Story of Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
Openers Come to the Crease
The Cricketing Scot Who Wouldn't Grow Up	p. 7
The Wrong Side of the Bat: The Birth of the Allahakbarries	p. 29
White Figures on Reasonable Terms: The First Games	p. 63
The Golden Middle Order
Artists v. Writers: The Games at Broadway	p. 97
The Mighty Conan Doyle, and Other Cricketers	p. 131
Tht Punch XI	p. 162
Tail-enders
The Real-Life Peter Pans	p. 197
The Last Man In	p. 227
Stumps: Death and Ennoblement
Gallant Gentlemen	p. 257
Happy Days Long Dead	p. 269
A Final Innings for the Allahakbarries	p. 290
Epilogue: What happened to the other Allahakbarries?	p. 315
Acknowledgements	p. 321
Notes on sources	p. 326
Index	p. 335
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.