The ABC of Physical Culture
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The ABC of Physical Culture
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First Publication
Published by Henry J Drane in August 1904.
Availability
Out of print.
Background
In October, 1903, Ransome answered an advertisement in the Daily News, seeking an “experienced journalist with a thorough knowledge of athletics“. Ransome was neither, but the advert offered a salary of 20s per week to ghost write books for well-known sportsmen.
Ransome went enthusiastically to work, writing between two and six thousand words a day. In Bohemia in London, he records writing six books for his agent in two months. Unfortunately no records exist to say which books these were, or who published them. Neither is it clear whether The ABC of Physical Culture is one of these six books, or a separate but related work. Either way, it is the first book that Ransome had published under his own name.
Synopsis
The ABC of Physical Culture is a book of “practical instruction”, written by someone with no particular expertise in his subject. It contains an introduction and seven chapters on general health, muscles, breathing, smoking, food drinking and sleep.
“Twenty and thirty years later I have been amused to see on bookstalls, still bought by would-be athletes, some of the books of practical instruction… masquerading under once-famous names, that I produced during my six weeks of ghostly and breathless activity”
