..."Pugilistica: 144 Years of British Boxing". And I gotta say, the engravings are ridiculous. It's awesome seeing portraits of such bare-knuckle legends like Tom Cribb, Deaf Burke, James Figg, and so on. Those were some mean looking cats.
It's also interesting to read some of the round-by-round commentaries they have regarding the major matches of the boxers' careers.
Not that I'm meaning to gloat or anything, but sometimes working in a library pays off. ;)
Go ahead and gloat.......damn you.
:8)
I have a book with a likeness of Figg and a couple others. They didn't look like the type of folks you'd skip line on.
I have a book with a likeness of Figg and a couple others. They didn't look like the type of folks you'd skip line on.LOL, agreed 110%.Figg, and his fellow cudgeller pugilists must have been some seriously hard fellows.I remember reading the passage from Captain John Godfrey's manual (he was Figg's training partner), where he spoke of Figg "sparing no man, high or low, who took up a stick against him"--so obviously this guy took his training and teaching seriously.I also love the part where Godfrey wrote that he preferred training the backsword to the smallsword, because the training tool for the smallsword was the foil, and hits from it's point were disputed all the time, whereas the training tool for the backsword was the singlestick, and Godfrey said that no man would dispute a full hit from a singlestick.
"Godfrey said that no man would dispute a full hit from a singlestick."
I imagine not. Those singlestick guys took a beating. Didn't they used to pray not to lose an eye during their matches?
The first volume of the set opens with this engraving of Figg's lumpy bald head glaring at the reader. I really want to get a full-size reproduction of that hanging next to my training toys. Keeps you motivated, you know?
BTW, since TFS has joined on the thread, what are some other good texts to go searching around the Newberry Library's collection for? (If I can find anything of interest, I might be able to do some transcriptions/photoduplications.)
Figg looks like the type of guy who would walk into a restaurant and start eating the food off of YOUR plate just because he was hungry and didn't feel like paying.
Steve =)
TheLoneYinzer-
Is that the Newberry in Chicago? If so, I just kicked around the online catalog, but it said only 20% of their collections are listed. For instance, I didn't see Pugilistica in there.
Anyway, if that's the type of thing you are interested in, you can also check for Pancratia, Wrestliana, and Fistiana. If they have Fistiana, I might even have a couple of questions for you. In fact, if you are interested in checking something, I wouldn't mind looking for a listing in the Chicago City Directory from the early 1900s. Then there's an article through JSTOR I wouldn't mind seeing also, if you're interested in Chinese Martial Arts and have access.
Jason
Yup, that's the Newberry Library, Jason. I work in the Special Collections department here.
It *is* true about the online catalog. We keep collections that were first cataloged around 1898 in the card files, and anything that was aquired pre-1970's won't be online yet (though we're trying).
If you can tell me specifically what you're looking for with regards to the city directory, I can try to dig through the archives on a break or something. I'm also not familiar with JSTOR, but would be more than happy to look up to see if we have anything.