This is the biography of W G Grace. One of England's greatest cricketers, he dominated the game for nearly half a century. His rotund and bearded figure made him one of the most famous characters of the Victorian age, along with Gladstone and Queen Victoria herself. He has been described as the greatest cricketer of all time (only Sir Donald Bradman could seriously challenge him) and England's greatest sportsman. Born near Bristol in 1848, he scored nearly 55,000 runs in his career, including 126 first-class centuries, and took nearly 3000 wickets. He scored 152 in his first Test match, becoming a national legend, and was the first batsman to score 2000 runs in a season and the first to record a triple century.