In Conversation with Vic Marks
'The perfect book to take with you and your deck chair to a village cricket match this summer. This book reminds us how writing and cricket and reading belong together, as do the people who love them. And I’m one of them!' Michael Morpurgo
'A delightful and revealing jaunt into the world of some of my favourite writers.' Alexander Armstrong
PG Wodehouse used his cricket-playing to launch his writing career. JM Barrie modelled the pirates in Peter Pan after his cricket teammates. Arthur Conan Doyle named Sherlock Holmes after a cricketer he’d played against. They all belonged to a network of cricket-playing writers, who collectively left a permanent legacy on English culture. Their teams went by various names, but most often they called themselves the Authors. Based on a wealth of new research, author Ollie Randall tells the story of the players, and how cricket influenced their careers and their writings.
About the Author: Ollie Randall is a writer, historian and cartoonist. He completed his doctoral thesis, ‘Cricket, Literary Culture and Englishness, 1887- 1968,’ in January 2026. Ollie has written articles for a variety of publications, most frequently for the Times Literary Supplement. His second book, Lord’s and Maharajas – about the political intrigue and imperial crisis that shaped the origins of Indian international cricket – is due out in autumn 2026.
About the Interviewer: Vic Marks is a former Somerset and England off-spin bowler. He retired from playing in 1989 and was the cricket correspondent for the Observer for 31 years. He has been a regular and much-loved part of the Test Match Special team as a summariser since 1990. His book, The Cricket Captains of England 1979 – 2025, a companion volume to Alan Gibson’s The Cricket Captains of England, 1877-1979, is out now.