A Charming Book By Lehmann

There has been a lot about R.C Lehmann on HTBS lately, but I find the man fascinating, so I can not stop writing about him. We know him best as an authority on rowing and as a poet of light verse, while his contemporaries probably recognised him as an important contributor to Punch. It was in this magazine he wrote his parodies of Sherlock Holmes which later were collected in Adventures of Picklock Holes (1901).

Another book, which is not that easy to find nowadays, is called Sportsmen and Others. I have a copy without printing year, but one edition published by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co came out in 1912. My edition is in the series called Bell's Indian and Colonial Library and was issued 'for circulation in India and the Colonies only' as it states in the book. Of the 24 short stories, five are about rowing: 'Two Boatmen', 'Mr Ed Plummer', 'A Putney Waterman', 'Coxswains', and 'A Bumping Correspondence'. The illustration on top is from the story 'Coxswains'.

Though, it is very light entertainment, it is a charming book.