Book of the Week

Lion and the Eagle, The

Just after 7am on 17 April 1860 in a field outside Farnborough, Tom Sayers from Brighton and the New Yorker John Heenan shook hands, then stripped to the waist. Boxing's first world title fight was about to begin. Thirty-seven bloody bare-knuckle rounds later, the bout ended in chaos as Sayers' corner collapsed the ring, claiming their man, five inches shorter and 40lb lighter than his opponent, was being strangled on the ropes. The outcome was officially a draw. Iain Manson's account of the build-up, fight and aftermath bubbles and fizzes with vitality, providing a history of the prize-fighter along the way and setting this epochal contest firmly in its social context.

Simon Redfern