the finest book written about the game of cricket
Beyond a Boundary
Hutchinson, 1963.
First edition. Original back paper covered boards lettered in gilt in pictorial dustwrapper designed by Peter Chadwick. Inscribed by the Author on the front endpaper, "for Michael Stone / With warm regards C.L.R.James. Oxford Feb 5 1969." A near fine copy with a little foxing to the page edges in a very good dustwrapper indeed with slight fading to the spine and a little wear to the corners.
James' cricketing memoir, thought by John Arlott to be "the finest book written about the game of cricket" (Wisden, 1964). It's strength is that it covers philosophy, politics and the social history of West Indian culture as a means of putting cricket in context, giving it a claim to be much more than a book on cricket and giving rise to it's most famous and oft quoted extract, "What do they know, that only cricket know?".
In early 1969 James was in the middle of a lecture tour of British universities, speaking on the intersection of the historical roots of the Pan African revolt and Marxist Philosophy in the context of current politics. It is likely that Michael Stone was an academic or student at Oxford at the time, who attended one of James' lectures or debates.
Stock ID: 46997
£6,500.00
