Gilbert

There are few more instantly recognisable figures, from any era, from any walk of life, than W.G. Grace. With his enormous height, beer-barrel girth and immense beard he was - and remains - a caricaturist's dream. Too much so, in many ways. Arguably the finest and most influential cricketer who ever lived and one of the first true celebrities Grace became a persona rather than a person, racketing up unprecedented amounts of runs and wickets while slowly vanishing behind an increasing swirl of myth and apocrypha.Gilbert is the first examination of Grace to dig beneath the surface, blow the fog of fable and explore the man himself, the human being, and ask what he might have thought and felt. Who, in effect, was W.G. Grace?In the year that marks the centenary of Grace's death, Charlie Connelly charts the final years of his life, from his fiftieth birthday celebrations in 1898 to his death at the age of 67 in 1915, through the eyes of Grace...