J.N Pentelow: A Biographical Enquiry

Martin Chandler | 7:25am GMT 28 January 2024

Published: 1969
Pages: 16
Author: Rosenwater, Irving
Publisher: Private
Rating: 3.5 stars

The name of JN Pentelow is barely recognised today. In his time he was a prolific cricket writer, but generally in periodicals and newspapers rather than books and, never having penned a biography, a history or a tour book there is no ‘landmark’ publication that bears Pentelow’s name and maintains his status amongst 21st century bibliophiles.

Born in 1872 much Pentelow’s output was to be found within the pages of Cricket – A Weekly Record of the Game, the periodical which began in 1882 and which, by 1912, was losing money. It was not a good time for Pentelow to take over, and he compounded that error of judgment a year later by taking in the former England and Lancashire captain AC MacLaren. Rebranded for 1914 as The World of Cricket the magazine struggled on, but did not reappear after the Great War.

After the war Pentelow’s greatest output was of cricket fiction aimed at young readers, and he also contributed regularly to the Ayres annual.

Pentelow died in 1931 at the age of 59, so Rosenwater never knew him but he has nonetheless gathered together a good deal of interesting information that would almost certainly otherwise have been lost and all cricketing bibliophiles have cause to be grateful to him for the content of this monograph