WARNER'S OWN COPY
Imperial Cricket
London & Counties Press Association, 1912.
First edition. 4to. Author's own copy with his signature in the subscriber's box. Edition de Luxe, number 2 of 100 copies bound in full vellum and signed by the author on the title page. Gilt lettering and decoration to spine and upper cover. All edges gilt and silk page marker present. Illustrated throughout with 82 pages of black and white photographic plates, three full page colour plates and six tissue guarded photogravures. A near fine copy, bright and clean with the vellum slightly bowed.
A monumental work, this book chronicles cricket's history in Britain (including a chapter dealing with 'Cricket and the Royal Family') and throughout her colonies, with articles on the sport's development in countries including New Zealand, Bermuda, Egypt and the Solomon Islands.
One thousand copies were produced on subscription, the first 100 bound in vellum and signed as here, the remaining 900 bound in either morocco or quarter buckram.
It is described by Joe Goldman in his Bibliography of Cricket (1937) as "The Magnum Opus of Cricket" and later by Williams & Phillips in Wisden Book of Cricket Memorabilia (1990) as, "in its de-luxe form probably the most luxurious cricket book ever published."
PROVENANCE: P.F.Warner's copy, with his signature to the subscriber's box.
Padwick 83
Stock ID: 46026
£1,500.00
