BoxRec

I have never heard anything about a Marvelous bio. Has there ever been such a thing?
Would be strange if there was none, it would be an interesting book. Somebody should give the bald one a hint.

i'm reading audley harrisons book "scared shitless" it is extremely boring, lacks any kind of punch but amazingly it is touted as a best seller. cant wait to get to the end.

harrygreb wrote:i'm reading audley harrisons book "scared shitless" it is extremely boring, lacks any kind of punch but amazingly it is touted as a best seller. cant wait to get to the end.

I mentioned on another message board what I feel are the ten most important boxing books, not including any biographies, or autobiographies, but here's the list:

--1986-1987 Ring Record Book/ (ed) Herb Goldman
--Ring Battles of Centuries…1924/ T.S. Andrews All-Time Record Book
--In This Corner…40 World Champions Tell Their Stories…1973/ Peter Heller
--The World Heavyweight Championship…1974/ John McCallum
--Black Genesis: The History of the Black Prizefighter 1760-1870…2003/ Kevin Smith
--The Encyclopedia of Boxing…1960/Maurice Golesworthy
--Encyclopedia of Boxing (Updated)…1989/Gilbert Odd, or John McCallum's Encyclopedia of World Boxing Champions.
--Ten and Out…1947/Alexander Johnston
--The Ring: Boxing in the 20th Century…1993/ (ed) Steve Farhood
--The Saga of the Fist…1977/John Grombach
--The Fireside Book of Boxing…1961/ (ed) W.C. Heinz

I would probably replace the Fireside Book of Boxing with Beyond the Ring by Jeffrey Sammons.

its tough to find alot of these books in stores. Ive been to Barnes and Noble and Borders and their selection is terrible. I have to get them at Amazon.com

The big bookstore chains are horrible places to shop for boxing books. The best places are used books stores. Ebay is a good place though sometimes you have to wait for a certain title and then you have people bidding against you. Overall, http://www.abebooks.com is the best place that I know of. Clay Moyle has a very good selection at very reasonable prices on his web site...plus Clay is a very good person to deal with.

http://www.hometown.aol.com/cmoyle/myho ... index.html

barry wrote:The big bookstore chains are horrible places to shop for boxing books. The best places are used books stores. Ebay is a good place though sometimes you have to wait for a certain title and then you have people bidding against you. Overall, http://www.abebooks.com is the best place that I know of. Clay Moyle has a very good selection at very reasonable prices on his web site...plus Clay is a very good person to deal with.

http://www.hometown.aol.com/cmoyle/myho ... index.html

good list but if you dont include "the sweet science" then it is incomplete.
sorry.

and i know you have read it and rate its style very highly, barry.

True...The Sweet Science is one of the best books on boxing, considered by many to be the best...I just simply forgot it. I had recently read Beyond the Ring, which turned out to be a very good book and one that I feel any one with an interest in boxing should read, but this time next year there probably will be another book, or two that really hits home with me, which then I guess I would then have to expand the list instead of limiting it to ten.

As to biographies and autobiographies....it's a pretty tough task to try and pick only ten as there are still so many that I haven't read. Any book that has been researched very thoroughly would be worthwhile. John L. Sullivan and his America by Michael Isenberg is one of the most researched books that I have read and it, in my opinion, is the best book written about Sullivan, but there are still a couple of Sullivan books I have not read…John L. Sullivan: An Intimate Narrative by R.F. Dibble is the other main Sullivan book that I would like to read.

Although there are many, many great biographies and autobiographies there are still so many other fighters that need to be remembered and written about, which I have mentioned before, but some of the fighters that I would really like to see a biography written for, which currently is not being written, or written and waiting to be published, are Terry McGovern, Joe Grim, “Barbados” Joe Walcott, Peter Maher, Aurelio Herrera, Jack Blackburn, George Dixon, “Tiger” Jack Fox, Battling Nelson, Ad Wolgast, “Mysterious” Billy Smith and Ike Weir.

barry wrote: Although there are many, many great biographies and autobiographies there are still so many other fighters that need to be remembered and written about, which I have mentioned before, but some of the fighters that I would really like to see a biography written for, which currently is not being written, or written and waiting to be published, are Terry McGovern, Joe Grim, “Barbados” Joe Walcott, Peter Maher, Aurelio Herrera, Jack Blackburn, George Dixon, “Tiger” Jack Fox, Battling Nelson, Ad Wolgast, “Mysterious” Billy Smith and Ike Weir.

Barry, did you know Battling Nelson published his autobiography back around 1908 ........ and there are small biographies (around 70 pages) on Billy Smith, Joe Grim and Terry McGovern.

the best way to remedy the lack of a biography on a fighter is to write one yourself, go on try it. whats to lose?

>>>Barry, did you know Battling Nelson published his autobiography back around 1908 ........ and there are small biographies (around 70 pages) on Billy Smith, Joe Grim and Terry McGovern.<<<


I've read the Battling Nelson and Terry McGovern books and I have seen the one on Myserious Billy Smith, but I was not aware of the one on Grim. I know that there was a fictional book called "The Iron Man" which was based on Grim, but it was not a factual biography on Grim.

I'm pretty certain that anyone can read the Battling Nelson book, which used to be on a Nelson tribute site on the net...I don't know if it still is.


>>>the best way to remedy the lack of a biography on a fighter is to write one yourself, go on try it. whats to lose?<<<

I've been gathering material for close to two years now on McGovern and I have put together scrap books for several other fighters with intentions of writing bio's...whether I ever do, or not is another question. I have a ton of info on McGovern, but there are still a few New York papers that I want to cover very thoroughly before I even start to write anything.

There are two new biographies that have just been written that are now being shopped around to publishers, but they should be on the market within a year, or two, which they are on Sam Langford and Peter Maher and both books will be excellent as the writer for each really put a lot of time and work into each. They are two that I am really looking forward to.

barry wrote: I know that there was a fictional book called "The Iron Man" which was based on Grim, but it was not a factual biography on Grim.

I'm pretty certain that anyone can read the Battling Nelson book, which used to be on a Nelson tribute site on the net...I don't know if it still is.

I'm in work at the moment so don't have the Grim book to hand, but I think it's titled "The Wonder Man". It's really just a collection of newspaper reports and the like bundled together with some introductory text in a small format booklet with a few pictures, running to around 60-70 pages.

I'm not aware of the Nelson site ...... I'll have to try and locate that one.

http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Track/4980/


http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Trac ... rature.htm

I noticed that they don't have his autobiography up there...I don't know if they ever did, but I thought they use to. Anyway, there are still several pieces to read about Nelson at the site.

I would like to see someone tackle the topic with about 300 to 400 pages of detailed research.

I would really like to see the book on Grim. Do you know the title, author, pages and year it was published?

barry wrote: I would really like to see the book on Grim. Do you know the title, author, pages and year it was published?

The full title on the cover is:

Joe Grim "The Wonder Man": Biography and Ring Battles of the Greatest Living Italian Pugilist.

Nobody is credited with compiling the book and there is no date, in fact there are no details at all.

It runs to 72 pages of which there are quite a few adverts. It's a small booklet with stiff card covers that you could almost put in your back pocket.

There is a great picture of Grim shaking hands with Jack Dempsey at his training camp for a Tunney fight, and a picture of Grim's wife.

I've just checked and it's not even listed in the Hartley bibliographies.

I forget where I bought it but I remember paying some serious wedge for it.

Thanks for the link to the Nelson site.

According to Amazon.com, there has never been a bio of Carlos Monzon. Unbelievable.

Has anyone read Nat Fleischer's out of print bio of Stanley Ketchel, or the three out of print bios of Les Darcy ?