{"title":"Charles Sprawson","description":"\u003cp\u003eExplore the fascinating world of sports history with Charles Sprawson. From swimming to athleticism, delve into insightful narratives that uncover the cultural and historical significance behind our favourite games.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"haunts-of-the-black-masseur-book-charles-sprawson-9780099223313","title":"Haunts of the Black Masseur","description":"Haunts of the Black Masseur is a dazzling introduction to the great swimming heroes: Byron leaping into the surf at Shelley's beach funeral, Hart Crane, swallow-diving to his death in the Bay of Mexico, Ulysses, Leander, Weismuller and many more.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49525981610257,"sku":"GOR001203089","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49657364185361,"sku":"GOR001536467","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50431111889169,"sku":"CIN0099223317G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50560452395281,"sku":"GOR001610612","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0099223317.jpg?v=1751004266"},{"product_id":"haunts-of-the-black-masseur-book-charles-sprawson-9780099577249","title":"Haunts of the Black Masseur","description":"A new re-issue of the cult swimming classic, a beautiful read filled with detailed description and powerful prose.  WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY AMY LIPTROT  ‘A luminously romantic history of swimming’ Guardian  Haunts of the Black Masseur is a dazzling introduction to the great swimming heroes, from Byron leaping into the surf at Shelley's funeral to Hart Crane diving to his death in the Bay of Mexico. Bursting with anecdotes, Charles Sprawson leads us into a watery world populated by lithe demi-gods – a world that has obsessed humans from the ancient Greeks and Romans, to Yeats, Woolf, Fitzgerald and Hockney.   Original, enticing and dripping with references to literature, film, art and Olympic history, this cult swimming classic pays sparkling tribute to water and the cultural meanings we attach to it.  ‘This splendid and wholly original book is as zestful as a plunge in champagne’ Iris Murdoch","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49578617241873,"sku":"GOR005752383","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49659350876433,"sku":"GOR011034168","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49667856302353,"sku":"GOR010802487","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49726611882257,"sku":"NGR9780099577249","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49853599482129,"sku":"GOR007423643","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0099577240.jpg?v=1750972721"},{"product_id":"haunts-of-the-black-masseur-book-charles-sprawson-9780224027304","title":"Haunts of the Black Masseur","description":"Haunts of the Black Masseur is a book about swimming. In it Charles Sprawson - himself an obsessional swimmer and fluent diver - explores the meaning that different cultures have attached to water, and their search for the springs of classical antiquity. In nineteenth-century England bathing was thought to be an instrument of social and moral reform while in Germany and America swimming came to signify escape. For the Japanese the swimmer became a symbol of samurai pride and nationalism. The author gives us fascinating glimpses of the great swimming heroes: Byron leaping dramatically into the surf at Shelley's beach funeral; Rupert Brooke swimming naked with Virginia Woolf, the dark water 'smelling of mint and mud'; Hart Crane swallow-diving to his death in the Bay of Mexico; Edgar Allan Poe's lone and mysterious river-swims; Leander, Webb, Weismuller, and a host of others. Combining the literature of Swinburne, Goethe, Scott Fitzgerald, Yukio Mishima with the films of Riefenstahl, Vigo and the explosion of the Hollywood swimming musicals in the 1930s, delving in and out of Olympic history and informed throughout by the author's own experiences and the lyrical release he finds in the water, Haunts of the Black Masseur is a remarkable book, not only an enthralling account of man- body submerged, self-absorbed - and his relationship with water, but probably the best celebration of swimming ever written.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49599904874769,"sku":"GOR001167534","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49625501729041,"sku":"GOR003732829","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49655272472849,"sku":"GOR007658944","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0224027301.jpg?v=1750940588"},{"product_id":"haunts-of-the-black-masseur-book-charles-sprawson-9780816635399","title":"Haunts of the Black Masseur","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn a masterful work of cultural history, Charles Sprawson, himself an obsessional swimmer and fluent diver, explores the meaning that different cultures have attached to water. Sprawson compares the meaning various societies have assigned to swimming--from classical Greece and imperial Rome to nineteenth-century England and Germany and the U.S. and Japan in the last fifty years. Sprawson gives us fascinating glimpses of the great swimmer heroes: Byron leaping dramatically into the surf at Shelley's beach funeral; Edgar Allen Poe's lone and mysterious river-swims; Rupert Brooke swimming naked with Virginia Woolf; Hart Crane swallow-diving to his death in the Bay of Mexico; Johnny Weismuller as athlete and entertainer. Informed by the literature of Swinburne, Goethe, Scott Fitzgerald, and Yukio Mishima; the films of Reifenstahl and Vigo; the Hollywood \"swimming musicals\" of the 1930s; and delving in and out of Olympic history, \u003ci\u003eHaunts of the Black Masseur\u003c\/i\u003e is a celebration of swimming that explores aspects of culture in a heretofore unimagined way.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50125005029649,"sku":"CIN0816635390G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51696597893393,"sku":"CIN0816635390VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52521626206481,"sku":"GOR007364688","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0816635390.jpg?v=1764844560"},{"product_id":"haunts-of-the-black-masseur-book-charles-sprawson-9780679420514","title":"Haunts of the Black Masseur","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn a masterful work of cultural history, Charles Sprawson, himself an obsessional swimmer and fluent diver, explores the meaning that different cultures have attached to water. 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