Peter Pan's First XI: The Extraordinary Story of J.M - Softcover

Telfer, Kevin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0340919469 ISBN 13: 9780340919460

Publisher: Sceptre, 2011

Synopsis

The creator ofPeter Pan, J.M. Barrie, was a hugely enthusiastic cricketer of very little talent. That didn't stop him from leading perhaps the most extraordinary amateur cricket team ever to have taken the field. Some of the twentieth century's most famous writers including A. A. Milne, P. G. Wodehouse and Jerome K. Jerome, regularly turned out for Barrie's team between 1890 and 1913. This very Edwardian vision of village cricket was only brought to an end by the First World War.
Those years of golden summers were recounted in Barrie's letters and journals, many revealed here for the first time. Cricket lovers will identify with Barrie's attempts to assemble a team of competent players.
In PETER PAN'S FIRST XI, Kevin Telfer weaves together cricket, literature, history, humour and biography to create an entertaining account of this little-known band of cricketing Peter Pans - and the age in which they lived.

About this title

About the Author

Kevin Telfer is the author of three books. He has written for theGuardian, theSunday TimesandThe Idler. He has a lifelong love of listening to cricket on the radio and lives in London.

Review

'Evocative and often very funny'. * Sunday Telegraph * This is a wonderful book, written with great elegance and affection, scrupulously researched and packed full of terrific stories. * Spectator * In this delightful book, Kevin Telfer tells the story of this lifelong love affair and its implications for Barrie and his charmed circle. The book attempts to capture an age and its attitudes and can be enjoyed by even those who do not have a penchant for England's summer game. * The Telegraph, Calcutta * Entertaining * The Times Literary Supplement * We have an increasing need for Edwardian idylls in the 21st century, and Barrie's idyll, which involved the creation of a cricket team who tried very hard indeed never to grow up, is lovingly recorded in Peter Pan's First XI, by Kevin Telfer, timed to coincide with Barrie?s 150th birthday. The tragedy is that we all have to grow up, but at least we have cricket to keep the process at bay. * Simon Barnes, The Times * [Telfer] has unearthed a lovely and singular tale of men, sport and foolishness, perfect for a warm summer's day. * Marcus Berkmann, Daily Mail * In an entertaining history of the team, coinciding with the 150th anniversary of Barrie's birth, Telfer happily combines a mordant humour with an imaginative ambition to find in this celebration of cricket an allusive metaphor for a golden twilight of prelapsarian Edwardian England and the fall of a graceful innocence, when stumps were pulled for the last time, into the trenches and the immortality of Neverland * The Times * Telfer's book is a fine exposition of a little-known subject, one that manages to be more than just a cricketing chronicle, and that uses Barrie's haphazard team as a prism through which to view the wider prewar period. * Andrew Holgate, Sunday Times *

About this edition

• Publisher: Sceptre
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0340919469
• ISBN 13: 9780340919460
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 344