Badminton Library

The Badminton Library, called in full The Badminton Library of Sports and Pastimes, was a sporting and publishing project conceived and founded by Henry Somerset, 8th Duke of Beaufort (1824–1899). Between 1885 and 1902 it developed into a series of sporting books which aimed to cover comprehensively all major sports and pastimes. The books were published in London by Longmans, Green & Co. [http://www.wychwoodbooks.com/categories.php?subject=16 Badminton Library] at wychwoodbooks.com (accessed 3 April 2008)] and in Boston by Little, Brown & Co.

The series was dedicated to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, "one of the best and keenest sportsmen of our time". [http://www.staffs.ac.uk/uniservices/infoservices/library/about/collections/special/badminton/index.php Badminton Collection - Special Collection (SPC.10)] online at staffs.ac.uk (accessed 3 April 2008)] [http://www.library.uiuc.edu/rbx/exhibitions/Victorian%20Entertainments/catalog/catalog.html Victorian Entertainments: We Are Amused An Exhibit Illustrating Victorian Entertainment] at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library of the University of Illinois (Item 31: Golf in 1890, Item 32: Skating in 1892, Item 33: Cricket in 1888, Item 34: Cycling in 1887) online at library.uiuc.edu (accessed 3 April 2008)]

Editor

The founder of the Library, the Duke of Beaufort, acted as its overseeing editor, assisted by Alfred E. T. Watson, and chose authors who were authorities in their fields. Explaining his purpose, the Duke said: cquote|...there is no modern encyclopaedia to which the inexperienced man, who seeks guidance in the practice of various British sports and pastimes, can turn for information”.

Description

The Badminton Library was originally published in twenty-eight volumes between 1885 and 1896. To these were later added "Rowing & Punting" (1898), superseding "Boating" (1888). New volumes for "Athletics" (1898) and "Football" (1899) supplemented the original "Athletics and Football" (1887). In 1902, the final entirely new volume, "Motors and Motor-Driving", covered a new sport, and lastly there was a new edition of "Cricket" in 1920.

On the combining of athletics and football in a single volume, Mike Huggins says in "The Victorians and Sport" (2004) that it suggests "...that football's leading place was not yet assured amongst the more literate reading public." [Huggins, Mike, "The Victorians and Sport" (London, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004, ISBN 1852854154) p. 11]

The original volume on "Cricket" (1888) has sixteen chapters on topics such as 'Batting', 'Bowling', 'Fielding', and 'Umpires'. It defines the Marylebone Cricket Club as "The Parliament of Cricket" and describes the sport as "Our National Game".

"Cycling" (1887), by Viscount Bury, notes that riding the tricycle and bicycle, whether by women or by men, "is by far the most recent of all sports in the Badminton Library of Sports and Pastimes. There is none which has developed more rapidly in the last few years." It considers that "England may be looked upon as the Home of Cycling" and quotes Thomas Huxley's words to the Royal Society: "Since the time of Achilles, no improvement had added anything to the speed or strength attainable by the unassisted powers of man", commenting that a bicyclist had recently raced 146 miles in only ten hours.

"Skating" (1892) deals first with 'Origins and Development', 'Figure skating', and 'Recreation and Racing', noting that Holland was "the Skater’s Paradise" and giving a list of racing records since the 1820s, then continues with chapters on Curling, Tobogganing, Ice-Sailing and Ice hockey.

Laura and Guy Waterman's "Yankee Rock & Ice" (2002) calls the Badminton Library "a quaint turn-of-the-century British series", [Waterman, Laura, Waterman, Guy, & Lewis, S. Peter, "Yankee Rock & Ice: A History of Climbing in the Northeastern United States" (Stackpole Books, 2002, ISBN 0811731030) [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3LtZKlCrK5gC&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=%22Badminton%22&source=web&ots=bp4zlzaU9L&sig=PpD2NUnqUq4mNwRLInKLknuXUSk&hl=en page 16] online at books.google.co.uk (accessed 3 April 2008)] while a review of the publication "Collectors Guide to the Badminton Library of Sports and Pastimes" says of the books: [ [http://www.serious-collector.com/wst_page2.html review of Badminton Library Guide] online at serious-collector.com (accessed 3 April 2008)] cquote|If the series were to be issued today it might more appropriately be called "Sports and Pastimes for the British Aristocrat" to more accurately reflect its content.

A useful series for purposes of comparison is the slightly later American Sportsman's Library.

Editions

The Badminton Library was published in three different formats:

#The standard trade edition: octavo, bound in brown illustrated cloth.
#The deluxe edition: octavo, bound in half blue morocco, gilt titles to the spines and bright orange boards with a gilt coat of arms to the upper board, top page edges gilt.
#The large paper deluxe edition: large octavo or quarto, a limited edition of only two hundred and fifty copies, also bound in half blue morocco and much the same in appearance as the deluxe edition.

Name

The name 'Badminton Library' was derived from the Duke of Beaufort's principal country house, Badminton in Gloucestershire. There is no volume in the series on the sport of Badminton, named after the same house.

Bibliography

*Volume 1: "Hunting" (1885, by the Duke of Beaufort & Mowbray Morris, with contributions by the 18th Earl of Suffolk, 11th of Berkshire, the Rev. E. W. L. Davies, Digby Collins, Alfred Watson, Sir Marteine Lloyd, George Longman and J.T. Gibbons)
*Volume 2: "Fishing: Salmon & Trout" (1885)
*Volume 3: "Fishing: Pike & Coarse Fish" (1885, by H. Cholmondeley-Pennel, with contributions from other authors)
*Volume 4: "Racing & Steeple-Chasing" (1886)
*Volume 5: "Shooting: Field & Covert" (1886)
*Volume 6: "Shooting: Moor & Marsh" (1886)
*Volume 7: "Cycling" (1887, by William Coutts Keppel, Viscount Bury, later Earl of Albemarle)
*Volume 8: "Athletics & Football" (1887, by Montague Shearman)
*Volume 9: "Boating" (1888)
*Volume 10: "Cricket" (1888, by Allan Gibson Steel)
*Volume 11: "Driving" (1889)
*Volume 12: "Fencing, Boxing & Wrestling" (1889)
*Volume 13: "Golf" (1890, by Horace G. Hutchinson, with a chapter on 'The Humours of Golf' by the future prime minister Arthur James Balfour and with contributions by Lord Wellwood, Andrew Lang, Sir Walter Simpson, H. S. C. Everard and others, illustrated by Harry Furniss and Thomas Hodge)
*Volume 14: "Tennis, Lawn Tennis, Rackets & Fives" (1890, by John Moyer Heathcote, with contributions by A. Lyttelton, W. C. Marshall, and others) [ [http://www.sc.edu/library/spcoll/hist/tennis/court.html Court Tennis in the 19th Century] at sc.edu (accessed 3 April 2008)]
*Volume 15: "Riding & Polo" (1891, by J. M. Brown)
*Volume 16: "Mountaineering" (1892)
*Volume 17: "Coursing & Falconry" (1892)
*Volume 18: "Skating & Figure Skating" (1892, by John Moyer Heathcote, illustrated with photographs and with wood-engravings by Charles Whymper (1853-1941) )
*Volume 19: "Swimming" (1893)
*Volume 20: "Big Game Shooting I" (1894)
*Volume 21: "Big Game Shooting II" (1894)
*Volume 22: "Yachting I" (1894, by Sir Edward Sullivan)
*Volume 23: "Yachting II" (1894)
*Volume 24: "Archery" (1894)
*Volume 25: "Sea Fishing" (1895)
*Volume 26: "Dancing" (1895, by Mrs Lilly Grove FRGS and others)
*Volume 27: "Billiards" (1896)
*Volume 28: "The Poetry of Sport" (1896, ed. Hedley Peek)
*Volume 29: "Motors & Motor-Driving" (1902)
*Volume 30: "Rowing & Punting" (1898)
*Volume 31: "Athletics" (1898)
*Volume 32: "Football" (1899)
*Volume 33: "Cricket" (1920)

References

External links

* [http://www.serious-collector.com/wst_page2.html Collectors Guide to the Badminton Library of Sports and Pastimes] from the Valuable Book Group web site