The Cricket on the Green. Drawn by R. Ed. Wethey. Written by E.W. Hornung
London, Jordison, 1895.
Oblong quarto, [31] pages with illustrations on 28 of them.
Flush-cut quarter cloth and colour pictorial card covers slightly creased and marked; minimal expert restoration to a few edges; trifling signs of use; an excellent copy.
'Some seasons ago, ere the world went astray - / When summers were sometimes serene - / A match which the natives recount to this day / Was played upon Uppingham Green' ... A humorous account of the Inter-Parochial Cup for cricket-loving boys of all ages. Inscribed on the title page to 'Aunt Lizzie with the Author's kind love'. Ernest William Hornung (1866-1921) is best known as a crime writer, the creator of Raffles 'the amateur cracksman'. He was born in Yorkshire; in 'December 1883, before he had reached the upper sixth, Hornung left Uppingham School and arrived in Sydney next year. He became tutor to the large family of Cecil Joseph Parsons, owner of Mossgiel station in the Riverina and brother-in-law of Thomas Russell. Opportunity to travel in Victoria probably followed. Hornung returned to England in February 1886 when his father's business and health were both in jeopardy. He worked as a journalist and began writing stories and novels, several with Australian settings.... [In 1893] he married Constance Aimée Monica, sister of his friend (Sir) Arthur Conan Doyle.... His short period in Australia apparently had a crucial influence on his work not only by supplying him with raw material but by developing the attitudes which direct his most incisive writing. His earliest novels employ the Australian experience as a lens to examine British society for flaws. Hornung apparently moved towards the social satire of Raffles through an Australian character Stingaree, who appears in Irralie's Bushranger (1896) and in short stories (Stingaree, 1905). A gentleman as well as a thief, Stingaree casts doubt on conventional responses to both figures. Raffles, who began his criminal career when visiting Victoria with a touring English cricket team, is himself well bred - Eton, Oxford and the Marylebone Cricket Club. Being penniless he turns to crime, made easy by his athletic daring and his social connexions' (Australian Dictionary of Biography). Padwick 6698; not in Miller, Miller and Macartney, or Muir (but it looks like it should be in all of them); no copies on Trove.
Item #96994
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