[CRICKET]. [WANOSTROCHT, Nicholas] "Felix" (author). [George Frederick WATTS] (illustrator). Felix on the Bat; Being a Scientific Inquiry into the Use of the Cricket Bat; together with the History and Use of the Catapulta: A Dissertation on the different Styles of Bowling; … a scientific investigation into the vexata questio of Leg before of Leg before Wicket: Also the Laws of the Game, as revised by the Marylebone Cricket Club. London: Baily Brothers, Cornhill. 1855.
Small 4to. Original olive-green cloth blocked with a decorative panel in blind to both boards enclosing lettering and a cricketing vignette in gilt, all edges gilt; pp. x, 74; with an attractively hand-coloured lithographed frontispiece with tissue guard and 6 other hand-coloured lithographic plates depicting various batting stances (The Draw; Forward!; Home Block; The Cut) together with a series of 29 wood-engraved vignettes and text diagrams and decorative initials throughout; endpapers renewed, light bubbling to front cover, a little tining and spotting, offsetting from previous endpapers; provenance: partly removed bookseller's labe at foot of title-page Tomas Purves La Libreria Ingles Valparaiso.
Third edition, newly revised, of this important early instructional book on cricket, with almost a third more text than appears in the second edition. It is also the first cricket book to be illustrated with coloured lithographic plates. The first edition was published in 1845; the second five years later. The 1855 edition is much rarer on the market than the other two. This entertaining work considers the appropriate dress for the sport; the correct stance when fielding or batting; a range of strokes and techniques; the complex and vexed subject of "Leg before Wicket"; and looks at bowling and field positions, etc. Wanostrocht was the inventor of the 'Catapulta', an early form of bowling machine, which is described and illustrated with diagrams. The work ends with a 6-page section on the laws of the game, numbered 1-47 together with Laws for Single Wicket and Betting Laws.
Nicholas Felix (1804-1876) was an important figure in the history of cricket being a schoolmaster and one of the best-known cricketers of the nineteenth century, playing as an amateur alongside the early greats such as Fuller Pilch and Alfred Mynn. This talented man, who excelled as a classical scholar, musician, linguist, inventory, author and artist, had been adopted by the Wanostrocht family, adopting the surname Felix at a later date. He contributed much towards the development of the game, inventing the bowling machine and India rubber batting gloves as well as writing extensively on the subject.
He learned his cricket under the coach Harry Hampton at the East Surrey Club, Camberwell, later moving to Blackheath, playing for Kent Club and later the Surrey Club. He was a brilliant left-handed batsman. His highest score in first-class cricket was 113 for Kent against Surrey in 1847.
The engraved illustrations are reportedly by the young George Frederick Watts, who was only 28 in 1845. He is the renowned Victorian symbolist artist best known for his 'Circle of Life' paintings like 'Hope', one version of which hangs in Tate Modern and which is Barack Obama's favourite artwork.
E.W. Padwick. "Bibliography of Cricket", 397. R.J. Brown: "The Cricketer".
#2120755