Famous Fights

Famous Fights: Past and Present is one of the best and one of the rarest papers on prize fighting and boxing. The top fighters and their most memorable matches were researched in detail and the findings presented to the reader in a series.

The image to the right shows John L. Sullivan jabbing England's Charlie Mitchell, from the cover of issue 13.

What makes Famous Fights truly wonderful, is not the comments by observers and journalists who were at the great fights of yesteryear, nor the insights and documenting of points of history that may otherwise have been lost; the standout feature is the incredible drawings and images found in its pages. The paper was edited by Harold Furniss a journalist who had trained as an illustrator. Almost every page is adorned with a stunning boxing-related image. These images are signed by mysterious artists with names such as 'Cyclops', 'Ferdinand Fish' and others. Most give such detail that you can see the expressions on the faces of the spectators. Famous Fights brings the whole prize-fight era alive in a way that the other great historical works, Boxiana and Pugilistica never did for me, and the primary reason for this, in my opinion, is its line drawings.