Young Sam Butler and the Origins of Modern Running: His Athletic and Illicit Exploits as a Fox and a Hound

Sat 11 May 2013

St John's College

World-renowned running author and literary scholar Roger Robinson is the final speaker in a series about the major nineteenth-century writer Samuel Butler. Roger has discovered that before writing 'The Way of All Flesh' and 'Erewhon' Butler was a talented runner, who more than 150 years ago took part in some of the earliest recorded runs and races since ancient Greece. Sam Butler was the captain of the world's first harrier club. He was race director of the world's first organised cross-country race. He was meeting manager of the world's first modern track and field meeting. He drew the modern world's earliest picture of competitive runners. (Wikipedia and all the history books are wrong!)

Professor Roger Robinson ran for Cambridge University and Cambridge and Coleridge A.C., and for England and New Zealand. He set masters records in the Boston and New York Marathons. He is an award-winning running journalist, senior writer for Running Times and is covering this year's Boston and London Marathons. He is author of ‘Running in Literature’ and ‘26.2 Marathon Stories’, and editor of ‘The Way of All Flesh’ and ‘The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature’.

Cost: free