Publisher's Synopsis
A facsimile collection of five volumes with more than 3,100 pages, the set includes three major reference works of Sports and Leisure first published in England during the nineteenth century. (This was an age of modernization in sports, while the idea of sports as leisure and as a method of physical education developed through the growing middle-class society. And new games or sports such as golf, tennis, football, rugby, and cricket emerged.) Those books published in a large folio format contained the most detailed information about the history of sports in England and how they were originally played mostly by aristocrats before the eighteenth century and how they were transformed and played in the nineteenth century. All three books are reproduced in their original format. They include hundreds of illustrations and plates to provide a vital reference source for any researchers of British social life, as well as those interested in the history and development of sports and leisure.
