Books

First edition of Izaak Walton's beloved masterpiece and perhaps the best-known work in English on the subject of fishing--part fishing manual, part literary classic, a meditation on friendship, and a celebration of contemplation and the traditional natural order. Small quarto. (xvi), 246 pp., with page 245 in the later state with "contentment"; early state trout engraving at the center of p. 71; preponderance of text uncorrected as per Horne, with corrected text on pp. 103, 113, 123, 135, 152, and 197, partially on page 88. Beautifully bound in full green morocco, stamped in gilt; all edges gilt; moiré silk end leaves; with 2 pages of music for "The Angler's Song" by Henry Lawes with one page printed upside down as intended to enable two singers to sing facing each other. Text trimmed close on the top edge, just touching some running headlines; light soiling to the title-page and text; scattered light damp staining in top and fore-edges; repaired closed tear in the lower fore-edge, pp. 149/150, other small minor wear to text edges; text corrected in a contemporary hand, p. 169. Housed in a red cloth box, with "Brooke Dolan 1940" stamped in gilt on the front panel; light fraying and hairline split started to the front joint of custom cloth box. With distinguished provenance, from the collection of American adventurer, naturalist and sportsman Brooke Dolan II, in his custom-made cloth box; prior to that from the collection of Rudolph August Witthaus with his morocco label to the front pastedown. Witthaus was the top authority on poisons in the United States and was a forensic toxicologist in many important capital murder cases of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A cornerstone of angling literature and one of the most popular books ever published in the English language. The Compleat Angler has remained continuously in print over the last 370 years since this first edition, going through an astonishing 300-plus editions. The majority of the book is comprised of a dialogue between a fisherman and a hunter, in which the former attempts to persuade the latter on the practical and spiritual merits of fishing.