Lives in Cricket No 7 - Richard Daft

Chapter Twenty Kings of Cricket J.A.H.Catton, the sports journalist, claimed to have been the first to suggest that Richard should write his reminiscences, and stressed that he would make every effort to place the manuscript if he persevered with it. With the material help of Richard junior, Richard did persevere; the result was Kings of Cricket . Catton sold the manuscript to Tillotson and Son of Bolton for £325, of which the present-day equivalent is about £17,000. Tillotsons offered the memoirs for serial publication in The Athletic News , published by Hultons in Manchester. In the autumn of 1891, Richard was in touch with the distinguished man of letters, Andrew Lang, who replied to him on 27 October: I shall be pleased to see your manuscript, but till I see it I cannot say, of course, whether my assistance would be of any advantage to it. It may be better without me. Probably, the best plan would be for you to have it typewritten; in that form it is easily read and corrections can easily and inexpensively be made. Corrections on proof sheets are expensive. . . . If the ms. were typewritten, I could easily see whether my assistance would be of any use or not. Till I see it, of course, it is impossible to decide. faithfully yours Andrew Lang You have probably played against my brother, T.W.Lang, who used to bowl for Gloucestershire. It was a great feather in Richard’s cap that he attracted Lang’s interest, as he was one of the great literary figures of his time. The Dictionary of National Biography describes Lang as scholar, folklorist, poet, and man of letters. He was a Scot, born at Selkirk on 31 March 1844, and he must have been, of all his race, among 117