Any good bareknuckle boxing books?

For bareknuckle Black prizefighters you can't go wrong with "Black Genesis" by Kevin Smith

 

The Great Prizefight by Alan Loyd tells the story of the fight between Tom Sayers and John C Heenan and is a cracking read.

The recent Jem Mace biography - Master of the Ring, is also a very comprehensive book in it's accounts of both the bareknuckle days and the transition to gloves.

 

I've heard good thind about John L Sullivans America, but hander not read it yet.

 

Pugilistica, three volumes, is an obvious choice. Electronic version is available for free.

 

[ame]http://www.amazon.com/Sketches-Pugilism-Renowned-Broughton-Championship/dp/1402181280[/ame]

This is supposed to be really great. Liebling held it in high regard, judging from his sweet science book. I'd get it, but shelling out for all three volumes isn't something I'm trying to do right now.

 

Electronic version of Boxiana is available for free also, at least the first three volumes. I'd still pick Pugilistica as a better source.

 

Where at? :hey

 

http://www.google.com/search?tbs=bks:1,bkv:f&tbo=p&q=intitle:Boxiana&num=100
You can download them as PDF.

 

Thanks a bunch, Senya.

 

Yea Boxiana is a great free read by Peirce Egan, whose opinions about boxing were rarely disputed or questioned.

Many newspaper decisions, and official decisions have been decided based on his opinion. On top of that, he was a writer. So, yea, Boxiana is great lol

 

The Manly Art by Elliot Gorn is an excellent read.

 

Huh?

 

I've read few books on the bare-knuckle era and it's fighters.
My favorite read is "Bare Fists" by Bob Mee.

"John L. Sullivan & His America", by Michael T. Isenberg is is also very good.

"The Manly Art - Bare-Knuckle Prize Fighting In America", by Elliot Gorn is often mentioned as a great source, which it is too, but it can be a difficult read at times, mainly because Gorn sees to have a hard-on for very long, drawn out sentences, and I mean long ones, often 6-8 lines, littered with commas and fancy words everywhere, which can make the reader lose track of what he is actually talking about, know what I mean?
Still, I did get through it in the end and learned a lot from it.

I'm also hearing that "Jem Mace - Master of The Ring", by Graham Gordon is also a great read.

 

Those who prefer Pugilistica over Boxiana, can download all three volumes here:
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=pugilistica AND mediatype:texts