Francis Willughby's Book of Games: A Seventeenth-Century Treatise on Sports, Games and Pastimes

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David Cram Jeffrey L. Forgeng

Francis Willughby's Book of Games

A Seventeenth-Century Treatise on Sports, Games and Pastimes

David Cram, Jeffrey L. Forgeng, Dorothy Johnston

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Hardback

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English

Ashgate Publishing Limited
02 October 2003

Social & cultural history; Sociology: sport & leisure; Travel & Lifestyle

"Francis Willughby's ""Book of Games"" should be an invaluable resource for anyone with an interest in early modern social history. Dating from the 1660s, it was left unfinished when the writer died in 1672 at the age of 36. Nevertheless, Willughby's manuscript, even in its unpolished form is a goldmine of detail providing a snapshot of mid-17th century life, language and culture. The manuscript itself lists a wide variety of sports, games and pastimes, including football, hurling, card games, tennis and children's games. As well as providing rules and a description of the various games (often with accompanying sketches to explain particular points) there are numerous fascinating snippets of related information (such as the care of fighting cocks), that bring the subject to life, whilst the section on children's games is particularly poignant. Besides the intrinsic interest of the subject matter, the fact that Willughby embarked on the project from a scientific perspective adds to the value of the book. Willughby had been admitted to the Royal Society in 1661 and for a number of years prior to that had been collaborating with the naturalist John Ray. It is clear that Willughby's ""Book of Games"" was highly influenced by his scientific pursuits and was an extension of his natural history work, utilising the same skills of systematic observation, description and classification. Providing not only a word-for-word transcription of the ""Book of Games"", this volume also contains a host of interpretative material to complement the original data. As well as a biography of Willughby and a detailed description of his manuscript, a substantial glossary of games and obsolete terms is provided, together with a bibliography of Willughby's literary remains and more general reference works. Taken together, this publication provides an unparalleled resource for scholars of early modern England."

By: David Cram, Jeffrey L. Forgeng
Edited by: Dorothy Johnston
Imprint: Ashgate Publishing Limited
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: New edition
Dimensions: Height: 246mm, Width: 174mm, Spine: 178mm
Weight: 453g
ISBN: 9781859284605
ISBN 10: 1859284604
Pages: 360
Publication Date: 02 October 2003
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational , A / AS level , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Contents: Foreword; Preface; Introduction: Biographical background; Willughby's manuscripts and the Book of Games; Early writings on games; Approaches to the Book of Games; Chronology of Willughby's life; Francis Willughby's Book of Games; Plates; Appendices; Glossaries; Bibliography; Index.

David Cram, University of Oxford, UK, Jeffrey L. Forgeng, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA and Dorothy Johnston, University of Nottingham, UK

Reviews for Francis Willughby's Book of Games: A Seventeenth-Century Treatise on Sports, Games and Pastimes

'Any sensitive reader will come away from this book with greatly enhanced sympathy for the Puritan case against popular sports and games. Even the most hardened will be shocked by the violent sadism, wanton destructiveness and sheer imbecility evinced by some of the amusements described here.' TLS 'This is a fabulous book - by which I mean the subject of the fine editorial work of Cram, Forgeng and Johnston... The editors have done an excellent job with this book. The original text is rendered accessible to a wide audience for the first time. This in itself would have been enough for at least one market of readers, but there is so much more. Coming from a range of interests related to Willughby they have produced a multi-layered text with editorial material on the social scientific nature of the work, biographical information, contextualisation of work on games, all set in a finely wrought set of editorial conventions. I hope that this book get the wider readership it deserves; it is at once a work of deep scholarship and an entertaining and instructive read.' East Midland Historian