| Colin Blythe, voted by former England spinner Phil Edmonds as one of the country’s top 100 bowlers, was a giant in the golden age of county cricket before the First World War. He was the most famous England cricketer to be killed in the conflict.
This is the first biography Blyth, a complex personality, who was one of the first cricketers to challenge the game’s rulers, demanding to handle his own financial affairs rather than leave it to the Kent County committee.
But although Blythe was unquestionably one of the great slow left arm bowlers of his day, nervous tension brought a premature end to his career at international level. This book shows the tension may have been the result of epilepsy, an illness little discussed in Edwardian England.
Author Chris Scoble, who grew up as a Kent supporter, has also written Fisherman’s Friend, a life of Edwardian writer Stephen Reynolds.
“Historians with a tragedian’s bent will... swoon over Christopher Scoble’s poignant, near perfect biography.”
Frank Keating, The Guardian
“Scoble’s meticulous research and sound reasoning are at the backbone of this admirable book. You can almost smell the grass and hear the sound of ball on bat as he goes about explaining the forgotten genius of an unheralded giant.”
The Sunday Times Book of the week |
