{"product_id":"coffee-table-book-of-the-sport-of-fencing-hardcover","title":"Coffee Table Book of: The Sport of Fencing (Hardcover)","description":"\u003cp\u003eCoffee Table Book of: The Sport of Fencing is a large-format coffee table book of fencing, printed edge to edge in colour, one picture to a page and the widest carried across two: the foil, the epee and the sabre and their parts, masks, jackets and gloves, the piste and its scoring lamps, quiet halls from first light to moonlight, the old swords of earlier centuries, and fencers in bare halls, on a beach at dawn and on a garden path.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt opens with the blades and the kit: a foil on pale boards, a mask on a hook, a bare hall at dawn with one long piste, an epee against a plaster wall, a white jacket on its hanger, the small guard of a foil, a raised piste under lamps at night, a sabre on a stone wall, a sword and buckler on the flagstones of a medieval hall and the lines of an empty piste seen from above.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThen scoring, kit and the lesson: a metallic vest, sun in squares on the boards of a panelled hall at noon, an old practice foil with a leather knob on its point, red and green lamps glowing at the end of a piste in a dark hall, a lesson with the instructor in black and the pupil in white, unfinished blades on brown paper, two fencers en garde with epees on a gravel path in a summer garden, masks hung on pegs and white shoes.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThen dusk, rain and the hall cleared: a lamp lit over a blue door at dusk, a piste rolled up, a salute at the end of the piste, worn stairs climbing to morning light, the parts of a foil laid out apart, old leather shoes and rain on tall windows on a grey afternoon.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eToward the end: white jackets drying on a line in the sun, a wooden practice sword in a whitewashed corner, the dented face of a leather target, an old wire mask in the light of an oil lamp, frost ferns on a winter window, moonlight in bars across an empty piste and the swept hilt of a rapier.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShort notes run through the book, on the foil, the epee and the sabre and their rules, the kit and electric scoring, the piste, and the history of the sword, from sword and buckler to rapier and smallsword: the rules let an epee weigh up to 770 grams, a foil under 500, a raised piste waits under its lamps in the empty hall, the windows of the hall burn late on a snowy night, and a spring-loaded reel pays out the cable and draws it back as the fencer moves.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePrinted in full colour on heavy 150gsm coated paper at 216 x 279 mm (8.5 x 11 inches), as a hardcover with the art printed on the case.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Cedar Pine Editions","offers":[{"title":"Case Bound - PPC","offer_id":68149954937136,"sku":"9671456004822","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0262\/2357\/5085\/files\/9671456004822.jpg?v=1792641283","url":"https:\/\/www.thegreatbritishbookshop.co.uk\/products\/coffee-table-book-of-the-sport-of-fencing-hardcover","provider":"The Great British Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}