The only comprehensive narrative history of the world's most international sport, from Victorian lawn tennis to Andy Murray's Wimbledon 2013 triumph.

Excellent ... Wilson makes a passionate, partisan case that tennis should be treated differently from all other sports. In fact tennis shouldn't be treated like a sport at all, but should instead be seen as a kind of burlesque gymnastic seduction, a business of passion and, above all, of love. Tennis, Wilson argues, has been tarnished by being lumped in with more mainstream sports, with their linear scoring systems, their slavishly enacted win-lose-draw dynamic. It should instead be kept apart from the world in its own tennis-shaped love-box, allowed to bloom and bud as it wishes, a thing of beauty to be stroked and cosseted and made much of. -- Barney Ronay Guardian

An independent researcher and writer best known for her commentaries on feminism and popular culture, Elizabeth Wilson is currently Visiting Professor at the London College of Fashion. She is the author of several non-fiction books, and her novels The Twilight Hour (9781852424770), War Damage (9781846686504) and The Girl in Berlin (9781846688270) are also published by Serpent's Tail.