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First edition. Walton's Angler was part of a wider understanding of the importance of environmental conservation that developed during this period. In addition to being the most famous book on fishing, its advocation for methods of sustainable wildlife management makes it "one of the most important, formative environmental texts in the English language" (Swann, p. x). There are four ownership signatures or inscriptions in this copy, of which three are mostly erased. One at the head of A1v is illegible. Following this, a Christopher Gaskin? has signed his name, together with a descriptive "Book of Fishee" and a date of 1737?. At the head of the dedication page, the name of John Offley appears. The bookseller John Howell noted that "the appearance of a signature of the dedicatee, Sir John Offley of Madeley, in a very early hand... though not proof that it belonged to him, is certainly a curious and unexpected fact". Also on the dedication page is an illegible signature commencing with "John". There are various typesetting errors in the first edition, although corrected and uncorrected sheets seem to have been issued indiscriminately, with little significance to the priority of issue. In the present copy, F4 is signed in error for G4, the marginal note on page 151 is missing, "contention" (a mistake for "contentment") is uncorrected on page 245 (noted by Oliver as "the rankest of mistakes, of such a kind as to delight the heart of the bibliographer"), and the bass voice part of Henry Lawes's "Angler's Song" (p. 217) is printed upside down, the idea being for two singers to stand opposite each other sharing the score (this idea is abandoned in other copies). Coigney states that "it can be assumed that the copies with 'contention' are the earlier ones and that this error was noticed and corrected in later copies". Each successive lifetime edition was heavily revised, until the fifth and last edition was so much expanded as to constitute almost a different text, "which gives to [the first] edition an importance other than that due its priority" (Pforzheimer). "A first Walton confers distinction upon its owner" (Westwood & Satchell). "The Compleat Angler was conceived as a dialogue between men travelling on foot who each represented a different recreation. In the first edition there were two, Piscator (fisherman) and Viator (traveller)... By this means the art of fishing was introduced, defended, and expounded: its strong precedent in the fishermen apostles of the New Testament was established, the detail of baiting for, catching, and cooking different kinds of fish was catalogued, and the whole was accompanied by aphorisms which would show the reader what it might mean to live well... [The work] has commanded huge popularity: it has been reprinted almost as many times as A Pilgrim's Progress" (ODNB). Provenance: purchased from John Howell Books, San Francisco, 1975; library of William A. Strutz. READ MORE Octavo (143 x 87 mm), pp. [viii], 246 (with pages 70, 71, 73, 74, 75, 78, and 79 mis-numbered as called for by Oliver and without final blank R4). Contemporary sheep, spine with rules in blind, covers with double-ruled border in blind. Early 20th-century red morocco folding box by Sangorski & Sutcliffe. Engraved title vignette, 6 engraved vignettes of fish, 2 pages of music. Book label of William A. Strutz on the front fixed endpaper. Sometime neatly recased, repair to the head of the spine, later endpapers, occasional repairs to edges of leaves including the first two leaves, occasional damp staining, abrasions to G3, some minor worming to G7 and G8: a very good copy. Coigney 1; Horne 1; Oliver 1; Pforzheimer 1048; Westwood & Satchell, p. 217; Wing W661. Marjorie Swann, (ed.) The Compleat Angler. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014.