Echoing Greens: Cricket and the English Imagination - by Brendan Cooper (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The importance of cricket to England has been immortalised in the art and literature of a thousand years. For countless artists and writers across the centuries, the culture and aesthetics of cricket - white-clad players, the crack of bat on ball, booming appeals, admiring applause, figures running up to bowl, batsmen leaning, waiting, swinging the blade - have been as essential to the English landscape as the hills and meadows immortalised by Gainsborough, Constable and Turner.

It is a story that is known in part, but one that has never been explored in full. And it is lined with surprises, forgotten tales and unnoticed details - ranging from medieval manuscript illustrations, through a dazzling variety of visual art, poetry, fiction and drama, to recent portraits of contemporary heroes.

Echoing Greens is a fascinating and thoughtful exploration of the bond between cricket and the English imagination. It unveils that beneath cosy patriotic dreams of 'English values', a much wilder, more complex story exists. Alongside stories of heroic figures, noble values, and pastoral idylls, the literature and the art of cricket also tell of vice, violence, and scandal. The result is a thrilling investigation into the true story behind these representations of the game, and forces us to reconsider the history of cricket itself.

Review Quotes

Extraordinary . . .To read Echoing Greens is to be reminded of the astonishing number of times in which cricket is still referenced . . . one is grateful to Cooper for prompting the thought and I shall return to his book frequently--Paul Edwards, Cricketer

[A] comprehensive survey of cricket in the English imaginative arts . . . [Cooper] finds examples of cricket's beguiling, confounding place in the national psyche . . . His engrossing, often surprising book elegantly demonstrates that the game that inspires so much nostalgia can also be beset with conflict and hypocrisy. Which sounds perfect for a nation with as complicated a history, and contested a literature, as England.--TLS

A glowing history of the romantic aspects of English cricket--Daily Telegraph

Cooper has delivered something witty, wise and surprising that will have readers hitting Google to find out more about people they thought they knew. He is also admirably up to date--Cricketer

Cooper parses the game's relics, from the early modern whispers of a game of bat and ball through its rustic Georgian heroics and Victorian Pageantry--Tablet

If cricket is the perfect summer sport then this, in its way, is the perfect summer book, an ideal companion for long, wistful days on the boundary edge--Choice Magazine

Packed with surprising details and forgotten stories, Echoing Greens is a fascinating exploration of the cultural influence that cricket has had on Englishness throughout the centuries--Idler

There are entertaining titbits. Who knew that HG Wells's father was the first bowler to take four wickets in four balls? Or that Conan Doyle got WG Grace out?--Telegraph

This entertaining, informative book is a delight for any culturally-minded cricket buff--Critic

This well-researched study of cricket's representation in art and literature depicts a fascinating social history--Country Life

About the Author

Born in London's East End, Brendan Cooper received his BA and PhD from the University of Cambridge. He has published widely on British and American literature, including a critical guide to William Blake and a study of Cold War American poetry. He is the author of Deep Pockets.