Book Fairs | April 28, 2023

John Arlott's Copy of One of the World’s Rarest Cricket Books at Firsts London

Peter Harrington

An unexpected win for Hampshire against All-England in 1781 in Epps' early cricket stats book

Cricket. A Collection of All the Grand Matches of Cricket played in England within Twenty Years, viz. from 1771 to 1791 by William Epps will be offered by Peter Harrington for £225,000 at Firsts: London’s Rare Book Fair next month.

The copy is particularly special, having come from the library of iconic cricket commentator and book collector John Arlott. The book was a gift from his father and the last book of his fine cricket collection that he personally retained. Exceptionally rare, the book preserves records of the earliest days of the game.

“Epps’ volume has long been recognized as virtually unobtainable. Only a handful of copies are known, apparently just four have previously come up at auction,” said Pom Harrington, owner of Peter Harrington.

A copy was sold to Leslie Gutteridge, of cricket specialists The Epworth Press, in June 1958 for £85, then in 1966 J. W. Goldman’s copy, part of “the finest collection of cricket books ever to be in private hands” realized only £50 – also sold to Gutteridge. After nearly four decades, the next appearance was at Christie’s in 2005 when Desmond Eagar’s copy sold for £90,000; and finally in 2010 the Marlyebone Cricket Club’s duplicate copy sold, again at Christie’s, for £151,250, apparently the highest price ever paid for a cricket book.

“The book would rank among the most expensive cricket books of all time,” Harrington said. “In today’s money it would equate to a price near what was achieved for the Marlyebone Cricket Club copy, which sold for £151,250 with premium at Christie’s in 2010. This is believed to be the highest price ever paid for a cricket book.”

Peter Harrington

Cricket. A Collection of All the Grand Matches of Cricket played in England within Twenty Years, viz. from 1771 to 1791 by William Epps

Peter Harrington

Arlott's inscription and earlier bookplates

Peter Harrington

Cricket. A Collection of All the Grand Matches of Cricket played in England within Twenty Years, viz. from 1771 to 1791 by William Epps

Epps is not listed in the English Short Title Catalogue, the authoritative record of publications in English 1473-1800, and institutionally there is no record of the book in any library worldwide, including the British library. It appears to be because Epps published it on only a small provincial run.

Epps was working at the dawn of the collection of cricket statistics. At the time Samuel Britcher, the first scorer for the MCC, had started issuing annual accounts of matches dating back to the 1790s. Epps’ book collects and presents the records for the preceding twenty years.

William Epps was a provincial printer and keen cricketer from Troy-Town in Rochester, England. The present work is the only one of his publications in which his personal involvement as author is evident. The author’s “Apology”, which prefaces the scores themselves, explains that he saw no need to take his work beyond 1791 because of the “regular annual publication, by Mr. Britcher, the Scorer to the Mary-le-bone Club, which, of course, obviates the necessity”.

Britcher's scorebooks (1790-1805) covered the seasons as they occurred, while Epps’s book offered the completist a record of the results for the previous 20 years in a single volume. To cover this earlier period with appropriate accuracy, Epps faced the daunting challenge of consulting primary sources scattered among various manuscript collections including those of the Duke of Dorset, the Earls of Tankerville and Winchilsea, Sir Horatio Mann, and Squire Paulet. Epps’s book formed the basis of the first volume of Arthur Haygarth's monumental Scores and Biographies (1862-63) and remains a crucial source for the period.

The provenance of this copy makes it exceptionally desirable. John Arlott (1914-1991), commentator for BBC Radio’s Test Match Special from 1957 to 1980, was described as “the very personification of cricket” by former UK Prime Minister John Major. Arlott amassed a wonderful collection of cricket titles, but when on retirement he sold the bulk of it, he retained this volume. Arlott has calligraphically noted his father’s name and vital dates on the front free endpaper: “William John Arlott. 1883 / 1959”.

There are two earlier bookplates on the front pastedown. Firstly, that of Matthew Lewis (1750-1812), the father of gothic novelist Matthew 'Monk' Lewis. Lewis was the owner of several plantations in Jamaica and held the remunerative posts of chief clerk and deputy secretary at war in the war office. Imposed slightly atop Lewis’s plate is a 19th century bookplate of the Panshanger library of the earls Cowper. The record shows that a number of books seem to have made their way from Lewis’s library to Panshanger.