Book
Peerless Jim
First published 1984
Jim Driscoll grows from poverty in Cardiff into one of the outstanding featherweight boxers of the early twentieth century. Cordell follows the discipline, speed and tactical intelligence that made him a British champion and a celebrated figure on both sides of the Atlantic, while keeping the communities of Cardiff central to his identity.
The novel is biographical fiction built around the career of the real James ‘Peerless Jim’ Driscoll, whose fame included the Lonsdale Belt and major bouts in Britain and the United States. Success never entirely separates him from Catholic Cardiff or from the economic world that produced professional fighters. Cordell turns sporting achievement into a wider story of class, migration and civic pride in Edwardian Wales.
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