Modern Billiards

Garno, Benjamin, 1840-Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.3

Word count: 513K words
Chapters: 52

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Modern Billiards by Benjamin GarnoAuthor: Garno, Benjamin, 1840-,Language: English, Class: GV: Geography, Anthropology, Recreation: Recreation, Leisure, Release Date: Mar 28, 2019

Editor's review

Modern Billiards is a billiards manual by the nineteenth-century author Benjamin Garno, a public-domain sports and leisure e-book from Project Gutenberg. It covers basic technique, shot-making methods, and practice, reflecting the rules and training methods of early modern billiards and holding value both as sports history and as a technical manual. For today's readers, the equipment names and some terminology bear the marks of their era, and certain table specifications and popular strokes differ from current practice; it is therefore better read as historical material on the evolution of billiards technique than used as a modern instructional book to follow directly. Read it alongside contemporary billiards teaching materials to see how nineteenth-century players understood stance, mechanics, and practice, and you will also find much of interest about early leisure culture.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Sports enthusiasts interested in the history of billiards and early technical standards
Readers studying nineteenth-century sports leisure culture or sports publishing
Players who want to compare historical material with modern billiards play

Not a good fit for

Readers looking for a beginner's book that directly applies modern billiards rules and techniques
Complete beginners with no billiards experience who need modern illustrated instruction

Reading tips

Read the table of contents first and distinguish the basic stance sections from the advanced shot-making sections; read by topic rather than straight through
Read alongside current billiards teaching materials and mark places where specifications and terminology differ from modern usage
Pull out the sections on practice methods and try simple versions at a table to get a feel for historical training ideas

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Can this book be used to learn to play billiards?

It can serve as a historical reference, but it is not recommended as a main textbook. The equipment, table dimensions, and some strokes discussed differ from modern standard rules, and much of the terminology needs clarification. Complete beginners should start with a contemporary introductory course; this book is better used after the basics are learned, to understand early technique.

Does the book have illustrations to help understand the movements?

Whether the Gutenberg e-book includes illustrations depends on the original scan and digitization; not all versions preserve the complete plates. When reading chapters on stance and shot-making, if illustrations are missing, use billiards books of the same period or modern video explanations for comparison.

Why is a billiards book worth reading as a public-domain text?

It records the technical character and publishing style of nineteenth-century billiards as a leisure sport, helping readers see how rules and training ideas changed over time. For readers interested in sports history, leisure culture, or old technical manuals, such a text is itself readable historical material.

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About the author

Garno, Benjamin, 1840- Author

Very little is known about Benjamin Garno (1840–), and the publicly available information is limited: his nationality, education, and professional career cannot be reliably established, and his profile can only be sketched from the small number of surviving works. One work by him is held in the collection, Modern Billiards. Judging from the title and subject, the book deals with the game of billiards and appears to belong to the nineteenth-century genre of practical sports and recreation manuals, likely covering rules, stroke techniques, and practice methods. Books of this kind were generally aimed at ordinary enthusiasts and billiard-room practitioners, and were written in a plain, practical style that emphasized instruction rather than theory. Because biographical details are lacking, any assessment of his writing style and historical influence would require closer study of the original text alongside other contemporary sources.