They Run with Surprising Swiftness
The Women Athletes of Early Modern Britain

Peter Radford (Author)

9780813947938

Paperback / softback, published 5 May 2023

314 pages, 33 b&w illustrations, 5 tables
23.3 x 15.5 x 1.7 cm, 0.22 kg

“A pioneering book based on original and painstaking scholarship. The sheer weight of the research and its meticulously written details will challenge preconceived popular and academic notions about the role and status of women in early modern British society. The book will not only be of interest to sports historians but will also provide fresh insights for scholars of women’s history and early modern history in general. Radford is a leading authority on this subject for this time period. This is a labour of love.” - Neil Carter, De Montfort University, Leicester, author of Cycling and the British: A Modern History

Women have battled for a place in the male-dominated world of sports throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, overturning obstacles and highlighting the changing position of women in societies around the world. This has become one of the defining stories of our age and the central story of women’s sports. They Run with Surprising Swiftness tells a different and much older, forgotten story with many of the same themes.

Sports have never been the sole preserve of men; women athletes have always been there. As this book shows, throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Britain, women of all ages ran, fought, rode, played football, cricket, tennis, and other sports. They competed in tough, head-to-head events that required extraordinary endurance and skill. Though not labeled "athletic" at the time, these women performed feats that in our age would certainly earn that descriptor. They Run with Surprising Swiftness recognizes these remarkable athletes and their achievements and aims to restore them to their rightful place in the long history of women in sport.