Billiards Expounded to All Degrees of Amateur Players. Volume 1
As one who has publicly figured as a tutor of billiards for the past twenty years, with, I hope, no inconsiderable amount of success, I wish now, in another form, to place before the tens of thousands of amateur players in this country the lines whereon I consider the royal road to proficiency may be entered. The scarcity of good players will in itself show that billiards is not the easiest game to take up. In my opinion it equals chess in depth of detail As an indoor pastime it soars above all other games, combining as it does mental with physical exercise. With all its fascination and tremendous list of devotees—for who does not play or try to play billiards ?—the general run of ability amongst amateur players is of a surprisingly low quality. In other recreations, professional and amateur form is pretty well on a par. If in a few instances the former show superiority, the cause can be traced to the extra time and training they devote to their particular branch of sport. The billiard professors, of course, have the same favourable aid to excellence; but this in no way accounts for their amazing degree of skill as compared with the limited scoring powers of the amateur.
It was my good fortune to secure as a collaborator Mr. S. A. Mussabini, a well-known writer on the game of Billiards. He has acted as a sort of “Boswell” to me; for all that is re∞rded in “ Billiards Expounded ” comes from his pen as a condensation and lucid arrangement of the precepts and principles I have from time to time put before him. How well he has performed his task the reader can now judge.
JOHN PATRICK MANNOCK.
Book from private collection