The Field is Full of Shades is an unpretentious and
wholly delightful book about the men who made the English game of cricket. In the space of Iii pages Mr. Martineau has collected (mostly from his contributions to The Cricketer) a poem, three essays on single-wicket, Wisden and the laws of cricket, and twenty-four essays on those early heroes most responsible for the creation of the game as it exists today—the first professionals, the great patrons, the men who framed the rules, the men who regulated the size of the bat and the shape of the wicket, the men who invented wicket-keeping and round-arm bowling, and he who dared to substitute a mowing- machine for sheep at Lord's. The book is full of entertaining in- formation; but, more than this, a great but concealed art has gone to the making of it. Hardly any of the essays are longer than three pages ; but in that confined space Mr. Martineau has succeeded again and again in creating a character. So many novels are indeed full of shades. But Mr. Martinean's field is full of living personali- ties.
Previous page
