Early boxing writings.

[BitPlayer]

http://www.chelseabookfair.com/index.pl ... age=528722;
Dated at ~1784 can't find any versions online.

Another is he Modern Art of Boxing from the 1790's seemingly by Daniel Mendoza, quite easy to find online, haven't read it yet

I also found this from a ~1713 wrestling manuel (which is before the reign of James Figg)



I'd be very interested if anyone can find any manuels/manuscripts by James Figg or Jack Broughton.

Any ancient writings on technique would be interesting to see too.

From what I've seen, it never really existed during the middle ages, atleast in Europe.

[Caractacus]

Did those guys know how to write or even read back then ?
I thought only the "Elite" aristocracy were allowed to know how to read and write back in those days.

[BitPlayer]

Did those guys know how to write or even read back then ?
I thought only the "Elite" aristocracy were allowed to know how to read and write back in those days.

I don't know about James Figg, but I know Broughton wrote a ruleset. I don't know if it was actually them that wrote though, or if they just got someone to write for them, the top ones atleast all had wealthy backers, so getting someone to do that wouldn't have been too hard..

[Caractacus]

I wonder if any of the Gladiators of Ancient Rome ever wrote anything about combat ?

[BitPlayer]

I wonder if any of the Gladiators of Ancient Rome ever wrote anything about combat ?

Dunno much about them. There's fairly extensive writing avalible on mideval combat etc. which I think is what HEMA is largely based on.

[BitPlayer]

https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/ ... BbAAAAQAAJ

1747, and by a student of James Figg, not all on boxing.

[BitPlayer]

Chapter V of The Modern Art of Boxing has some interesting insights into early training.

I'm not sure who actually wrote it, though it cites Daniel Mendoza and others.

[Tomasino]

Good thread. Very interested in this stuff.

[Caractacus]

There was a booklet published in 2012 entitled
THE GREAT SPORT OF BOXING: A COLLECTION OF CLASSIC MAGAZINE ARTICLES CONTAINING BOXING STORIES,FIGHTING TECHNIQUES AND BOXING HISTORY.(published by Goodale Press)
It is a re-printing of a collection of different early magazine articles about boxing particularly from C.B Fry's magazine
and other English sporting magazines at the time .
dating from around c.1900 and the 1910's mainly.(Nat Fleisher didn't publish RING magazine until 1922)
with some photographs demonstrating technique.
Its 46 pages in length.
here are the contents.

Boxing for Amateurs by J.G Bohun Lynch
My Reminiscences by Eugene Corri
Boxing as a Profession by Fred Walsh
Last Rounds and Knock-Out Blows by Norman Wentworth
The A.B.C of Boxing
Jack Johnson on Feinting and Timing by Ringcraft
The Bag Punchers-The story of a Scientific Conspiracy by C. Ranger-Gull
Old Pugilsts.

anyone here seen it ?

[Caractacus]

I came across this Boxing manual thats has to be one of the oldest.(first published in 1879 )

NED DONNELLY'S ART OF BOXING : A MANUAL OF SPARRING AND SELF DEFENSE
ILLUSTRATED IN FORTY ENGRAVINGS SHOWING THE VARIOUS BLOWS,
STOP GUARDS AND EXPLAINING THE MODERN METHODS OF ATTACK AND SELF DEFENSE

(published by Scott& Fitzgerald 1879)
121 pages.
(one source lists this boxing manual in a catalog of books for sale dated 1866
,so it may actually be older then 1879)
Ned Donnelly was born in 1841-1911.
He was reportedly a celebrated boxing instructor in England
had taught King Edward VVII and George Bernard Shaw as pupils.

[Caractacus]

as far as I can tell the earliest boxing writings may have been in the ILIAD by Homer.
(written around 800 BC ,although the story takes place some 400 years earlier in the early 12th Century BC ).
The first published edition was in Florence Italy back in 1488-89.

Epeius vrs Euryalus at the Funeral games of Patrociius
and later Epeius vrs Acamaus at the Funeal Games for Achilleus

(Epeius also later constructed the Trojan Horse)

[Caractacus]

here are a few more titles of old tyme boxing manuals
here is an early book published for the average man back in London England in 1790 (at a cost of 2'6 or 2 schillings and sixpense a copy)

BOXING REVIEWED; or The science of Manual Defense by Thomas Fewtrell (published 1790)
https://archive.org/details/BoxingReviewed

and some later booklets published in New York City,USA

THE SCIENCE OF SELF DEFENSE by Edmund Price (published 1867)
https://archive.org/details/scienceofselfdef00pric

BOXING by James Edward Sullivan (published 1893)
https://archive.org/details/boxing00sull