Postby John_Clements » Mon Feb 28, 2005 6:25 pm
I discovered what is probably one of the only surviving contemporary book reviews of Egerton Castle’s famous "Schools and Masters of Fence: From the Middle Ages to the Eighteenth Century." Written in 1895, and referring to the work’s second edition, it offered an “acknowledgment of the benefit it has been to all lovers of the art of fence.” The review declared: “Mr. Castle’s work is something more than a mere technical treatise on the art; —it is that, and also a complete history of swordsmanship from the middle ages to the end of the 18th century, ‘with a complete bibliography’ of the subject. As every position and every stage of development of the art, from its inception in the 15th century down to the present day, is illustrated…the book is far more interesting an instructive than the ordinary manual.” Commenting on the need for his work, it added, “Probably the history of no other art is so surrounded by the romance of national history as this, and yet it is the least known of any to the general public.” Interesting.
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