J O N K E R S R A R E B O O K S
“THIS GAME, SO FASHIONABLE, AND SO CREDITABLE AND MANLY” 3. Laws Of The Game in The London Chronicle. No 5119, Saturday, July 25 to Tuesday July 28, 1789 [CRICKET] T. Wilkie, 1789. 8pp in original self wrappers. Printed in three columns with title to first page. A fine copy, with evidence of having been extracted from a bound volume. [40977] £2,250 A rare early appearance of the laws of cricket, in an article in The London Chronicle from 1789. The first known attempt to make a universal codification of laws to govern cricket matches was established in 1744, by a number of eminent London cricket clubs under the auspices of The Star and Garter, the inn at which they met, and published in 1755. A significant revision and enlargement was made in 1774, including prescribing the width of the bat and allowing for leg before wicket as a means of dismissal. In 1787 the newly founded MCC, drawn from many of the committee at The Star and Garter, assumed custody of the laws (which it holds to this day) and issued its own rewritten, but essentially similar, version of the 1774 code. This publication in ‘The London Chronicle’ reprints MCC’s 1788 laws and is the first known appearance of the laws in a newspaper. This is significant in that the previous publications were issued in relatively small numbers with a distribution restricted to the major cricket clubs, so the promotion of the laws to a mass audience suggests the increasing popularity of cricket and the importance of a universally adopted set of laws for the game. An important milestone in the early development of cricket.
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