1940

Haddon Whitaker replaced Wilfred Brookes as editor, but the war hit home as Wisden's offices were bombed and all records lost. The editor warned that this would be the last familiar Almanack and that future volumes would "conform with the smaller issues of the Great War" because of dwindling paper supplies and a lack of games to report. The Almanack reflected on the curtailed 1939 season with a Review by RC Robertson-Glasgow rather than the customary Notes by the Editor. Looking back at the season was "like peeping through the wrong end of a telescope at a very small but happy world," observed "Crusoe", and he went on to criticise the "Timeless" Test at Durban in 1938-39 as being "laboured and tedious". In the final innings of the last first-class match for almost six years, Hedley Verity took 7 for 9 as Sussex were skittled for 33. Verity was to die in Italy in 1943.
Editor Haddon Whitaker
Pages 871
Price 5/- (soft) / 7/6 (cloth)

Almanack essays

Notes on the 1939 Season

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