Right Royal is a rollicking racing ballad, written by the great English poet John Masefield and first published in 1920. Against heavy odds, Charles Cothill enters his unfancied outsider Right Royal for the English Chasers' Cup, a race run over four and a half miles and, like the Grand National, featuring a string of formidable fences. Right Royal has earned a reputation for being ungenerous and temperamental, with remote prospects. But, on the night before the race, Cothill dreams that the horse will win and the haunting line echoes throughout the poem: 'It's my day today - I shall not have another ...' At stake is not only the rash wager the young jockey has on the race but the love of his life, 'the golden lady, Em'. A tale of exhilaration and heartbreak, folly and love, this is a spell-binding piece of writing by one of Britain's finest poets. Cecil Aldin's masterful illustrations beautifully capture the thrill of horse racing.
Author Biography
JOHN MASEFIELD was born in Ledbury in 1878, orphaned at the age of six, and after a period at sea training for a naval career, he worked on the Manchester Guardian. In 1902 his Salt Water Ballads was published, incorporating his celebrated poem 'Sea Fever', and 1903 saw publication of a further volume of Masefield poems, including 'Cargoes'. During the First World War, Masefield served overseas with the Red Cross, afterwards settling to enjoy rural life in Oxfordshire. At this point, he wrote Right Royal. Masefield was Poet Laureate from 1930 until his death in 1967. CECIL ALDIN (1870-1935), studied anatomy at South Kensington and illustrated many magazines and journals. In 1894 he was commissioned to illustrate Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. He was a Master of Foxhounds and many of his pictures depicted dogs, horses, hunting and rural life.
