Ronald Mason (cricket writer)
Ronald Charles Mason (1912 – 5 August 2001) was an English writer of novels, biographies, literary criticism and cricket books.
Life and career
After attending King's College School, Wimbledon, Mason entered the civil service, working most of his life in the estate duty office, employed in the collection of death duties. He also had a career as a writer, beginning as a novelist of modest success before devoting his energies to cricket books. After the Second World War he completed a first-class honours degree in English from the University of London, studying externally.[1]
He had trouble getting his first cricket book, Batsman's Paradise: An Anatomy of Cricketomania, published, until he sent it to Errol Holmes, the former Surrey captain, who recommended it to a publisher.[2] His cricket books were "marked by a genuine affection for the subject as well as a flowing style".[3]
Books
Novels
- Timbermills (1939)
- The Gold Garland (1939)
- The House of the Living (1946)
- Cold Pastoral (1946)
Non-fiction
- The Spirit above the Dust: A Study of Herman Melville (1951)
- Batsman's Paradise: An Anatomy of Cricketomania (1955)
- Jack Hobbs: A Portrait of an Artist as a Great Batsman (1960)
- Walter Hammond: A Biography (1962)
- Sing All a Green Willow (1967)
- "Plum" Warner's Last Season (1970)
- Warwick Armstrong's Australians (1971)
- Ashes in the Mouth: The Story of the Bodyline Tour of 1932-33 (1982)
References
- ↑ T. F. Evans, "Obituary: Ronald Mason: Civil servant who became an acclaimed cricket writer". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
- ↑ Suresh Menon, "Portraits of heroes". Cricinfo. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
- ↑ Wisden 2002, p. 1585.