[Gale, (Frederick)]

The Public School Matches

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[by Woodfall and Kinder for] John Chapman London 1853 First Edition And Those We Meet There. By A Wykehamist. Two lithographed plates of cricket scenes. 8vo. 65pp. Modern boards with a printed label on the front cover. Padwick 1345. The work is rare, with COPAC listing only two copies of this edition, at the British Library and the National Library of Scotland. Further editions were published in 1867 and 1896. The plates are a little foxed and there are a few spots, but it is a good copy. A humorous description of a cricket match between two public school sides. Intriguingly, the story introduces a character named Flashman who bears an uncanny resemblance both to Thomas Hughes's Harry Flashman, the notorious bully in Tom Brown's Schooldays, published six years later, and to George Macdonald Fraser's reincarnation of the character in his popular series of Flashman books. In Gale's words, "Ladies in coroneted carriages kiss the tips of their white kids to Flashman as he drives down by the Serpentine, and Flashman is in at Almack's, and well known at "the corner", and his name is mentioned as being present at Epsom and Ascot, and tomorrow you will see in the paper, after the lists of lords and ladies at the cricket ground, Captains Flashman, Blunderbuss, &c." Both Gale and Fraser have Flashman serving in the Hussars. Frederick Gale and Thomas Hughes, as well as the fictional Flashman, were born within a few months of each other, Hughes in October 1822 and Gale in July 1823. Gale and Huges both played cricket for their schools, and continued to play cricket at a high level, Gale playing once for Kent and Hughes in the Oxford versus Cambridge fixture. Cricket does, of course, play a large part in Tom Brown's Schooldays. We have not yet been able to establish if Gale and Huges met in person, but even if not, it seems likely that with Hughes's strong interest in the game he would have read The Public School Matches. There thus remains the fascinating, even likely, prospect that Gale's Flashman was the inspiration for one of the most celebrated and enduring characters in literature. Although Gale trained as a solicitor, his abiding interest was in cricket and other games, and he gradually abandoned the law to become a full-time sporting author and journalist.

• GBP 250.00 > other currencies
• ordernr.: ebc2753

• bookseller: George Bayntun (GREAT BRITAIN)