A FINE COPY

Boston, Ticknor and Company, 211, Tremont Street 1888

8vo, xviii, 358, [ii]], 20, green cloth with figures of two boxers setting too, and gilt illustration of a sword, numerous plates and line drawings in the text

Divided into four sections, the first “ethics and evolutions of boxing”; “Training of athletes”; “Ancient Irish athletic games”; “Canoing sketches”. bound up with the separately numbered 20pp, reviews of 'the Statues in the Block and other poems' by John Boyle O'Reilly,

Prof of History Trinity College. John Boyle O Reilly (1844-1890), Fenian Poet, patriot, sportsman and orator, was born at Dowth Castle in County Meath, where his father was master of the national school. Apprenticed as a printer to the Drogheda Argus,later he became a reporter on the Guardian in Preston. He joined the Fenians and came to Dublin in 1863 to enlist in the 10th Hussars so that he could recruit Irishmen for the Fenian movement. Betrayed by a fellow-countryman in his regiment, he was tried and sentenced to death, but this was later 46 commuted to transportation to Van Diemen s land. From there he escaped and arrived in Boston in 1870 where he joined the Boston Pilot newspaper. He became editor and later joint proprietor of that newspaper. He was the most influential Irishman in Boston at that time. During his trip to Ireland in June 1963 President John F. Kennedy regularly quoted from the works of O Reilly, who as a Fenian Irishman and a revered Bostonian, was highly regarded, particularly in Irish/American households.

Bibliography: Hartley 1515