The Exploits of Engelbrecht by Maurice Richardson, reviewed by Stephen Theaker

Gibbon Moon, ebook, 1736ll. In years gone by one of the principle pleasures of the gentleman on a Sunday afternoon was to read Maurice Richardson’s reports of the sporting activities of this nation’s greatest sportsman, Engelbrecht, the Dwarf Surrealist Boxer, “Sportsman of the Millennium”. Or at least to imagine doing so, since no Sunday newspapers saw fit to publish those reports, choosing instead to stick to quotidian sports such as football, cricket, rugby and badminton. That they could find no room for such estimable activities as clock-boxing, man-hunting and witch-shooting beggars belief.