Boxiana

Issued in parts from 1812, this series of sporting sketches by Pierce Egan describes the British prize ring in the bare-knuckle era. Egan recounts lives and battles of fighters such as Tom Cribb, Jem Belcher, and their rivals, together with the patrons, pubs, and betting crowds of London and the home counties. The prose mixes match reports, anecdote, and slang of the Fancy. The work is journalistic portraiture of a sport still half-illegal, not a single plotted novel: a gallery of contests and characters that made pugilism a public spectacle in the Regency.

Quarter bound in red-brown cloth. Yellow paper boards patterned in red-brown. Brown endleaves printed with colour pictures. Red-brown textured slipcase.