Lawn Tennis Lessons for Beginners

Tennis, like any sport, can only be mastered with devoted practice and knowledge of the fundamentals. Most instructional guides in the early days of tennis, however, provided only cursory instruction of its basic techniques. This historical work was written by J. Parmly Paret in 1916. It is a comprehensive guide to lawn tennis for beginners interested in the sport. Paret structures the book as if he is giving private lessons to a student. He begins with the basics by teaching his readers how to select the ideal racquet and what clothes they should wear. He continues with a display of the proper grip of the racquet and the key principles to maintain good form. He then goes on to teach the specific shots in tennis, including the forehand, backhand, chop shot, “twist” shot, services, volleying and lobbing. For each element, Paret gives a warning of the common mistakes that beginners make. He concludes with a description of the laws of lawn tennis of the time. While the techniques in the book are dated for today’s game, they remain as a fascinating study into the development of the modern sport.