Review of 'Swimming with Dr Johnson and Mrs Thrale: sport, health and exercise in eighteenth-century England', by Julia Allen, Cambridge, The Lutterworth Press, 2012, 290 pp., $40.00 (paperback), ISBN 978-0-7188-9276-0

Abstract

Examinations of the history of sport in the eighteenth century have received far less attention in academe than the volume of work on the development of nineteenth-century sport. This is understandable with modern sport considered to have emerged in the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, the relative neglect to date of research into the sporting practices of eighteenth-century society is regrettable. Julia Allen is therefore to be commended for redressing and bringing to life, with fascinating insights, many of these hitherto under-explored activities. The main title of the book - 'Swimming with Dr Johnson and Mrs Thrale' - is, however, a little misleading. It does not do full justice to the book and may even dissuade potential readers, whose main interest may be neither swimming nor sport. The book, on only cursory reading, is clearly much more than an exploration of the swimming exploits of Dr Johnson and Mrs Thrale [although due to my own interest in swimming history, the book's title was probably the main reason for my being asked to be a reviewer]. More reflective of the books content is the sub-title - 'sport, health and exercise in eighteenth-century England' - for Allen has produced an excellent exploration not only of a range of sporting practices, but also the contemporary views of many eighteenth-century health and exercise 'experts'. Ultimately the book, as the back cover highlights, is 'for anyone interested in peering into some of the obscurer recesses of eighteenth-century life'.