Haunts of the Black Masseur: The Swimmer as Hero

`A devoted and luminously romantic history of swimming' Guardian

Haunts of the Black Masseur is a dazzling introduction to the great swimming heroes, from Byron leaping into the surf at Shelley's funeral to Hart Crane diving to his death in the Bay of Mexico. In lively prose bursting with anecdote, Charles Sprawson leads us into a watery world populated by lithe demi-gods - one that has obsessed humans from the ancient Greeks and Romans, to Yeats, Virginia Woolf, F. Scott Fitzgerald and David Hockney.

Original, enticing and dripping with references to literature, film, art and Olympic history, this cult swimming classic pays sparkling tribute to water and the cultural meanings we attach to it.

`This splendid and wholly original book is as zestful as a plunge in champagne' Iris Murdoch