The Compleat Angler (the spelling is sometimes modernised to The Complete Angler, though this spelling also occurs in first editions) is a book by Izaak Walton, first published in 1653 by Richard Marriot in London. Walton continued to add to it for a quarter of a century. It is a celebration of the art and spirit of fishing in prose and verse. [1]
It was illustrated by Arthur Rackham in 1931.
Walton was born in Stafford and moved to London when he was in his teens in order to learn a trade. The Compleat Angler reflects the author's connections with these two locations, especially on the River Dove, central England, that forms the border between Staffordshire and Derbyshire in the Peak District. The book was dedicated to John Offley of Madeley, Staffordshire, and there are references in it to fishing in the English Midlands. However, the work begins with Londoners making a fishing trip up the Lea Valley in Hertfordshire, starting at Tottenham.
Walton was not sympathetic to the Puritan regime of the 1650s and the work has been seen as a reaction to the turbulence of the English Civil War and its aftermath; "the disorder of the present times received muted comment in the work's scenes of harmony", is the view of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . [2] "Study to be Quiet" was one of Walton's favourite mottos.
Walton's sources included earlier publications on the subject of fishing, such as the Treatyse of Fysshynge with an Angle included in the Book of Saint Albans . Six verses were quoted from John Dennys's 1613 work The Secrets of Angling .
The Compleat Angler was first published by the bookseller Richard Marriot, whose business was based in Fleet Street near where Walton had a shop. Walton was a friend of Marriot's father John, who had started the business, but was in retirement by the time the book appeared. The book was printed by Thomas Maxey of Paul's Wharf. [3]
The first edition featured dialogue between veteran angler Piscator and student Viator, while later editions change Viator to hunter Venator and added falconer Auceps.
There were a number of editions during the author's lifetime. There was a second edition in 1655, a third in 1661 (identical with that of 1664), a fourth in 1668, and a fifth in 1676. In this last edition, the thirteen chapters of the original had grown to twenty-one, and a second part was added by his friend and brother angler Charles Cotton, who took up Venator where Walton had left him and completed his instruction in fly fishing and the making of flies. [4]
Starting with the first edition, which had anonymous illustrations, the work has inspired artists, for example Arthur Rackham (1931).
Izaak Walton was an English writer. Best known as the author of The Compleat Angler, he also wrote a number of short biographies including one of his friend John Donne. They have been collected under the title of Walton's Lives.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1676.
Charles Cotton was an English poet and writer, best known for translating the work of Michel de Montaigne from French, for his contributions to The Compleat Angler, and for the influential The Compleat Gamester attributed to him.
Edward Jesse, English writer on natural history, was born at Hutton Cranswick, Yorkshire, where his father was vicar of the parish.
John Chalkhill was an English poet.
Juliana Berners, O.S.B.,, was an English writer on heraldry, hawking and hunting, and is said to have been prioress of the St Mary of Sopwell, near St Albans in Hertfordshire.
Dovedale is a valley in the Peak District of England. The land is owned by the National Trust and attracts a million visitors annually. The valley was cut by the River Dove and runs for just over 3 miles (5 km) between Milldale in the north and a wooded ravine, near Thorpe Cloud and Bunster Hill, in the south. In the wooded ravine, a set of stepping stones cross the river and there are two caves known as the Dove Holes.
The Izaak Walton League of America, Inc. is an American environmental organization founded in 1922 that promotes natural resource protection and outdoor recreation. The organization was founded in Chicago, Illinois, by a group of sportsmen who wished to protect fishing opportunities for future generations. They named the league after seminal fishing enthusiast Izaak Walton (1593–1683), known as the "Father of Flyfishing" and author of The Compleat Angler. Advertising executive Will Dilg became its first president and promoter. The first conservation organization with a mass membership, the League had over 100,000 supporters by 1924. An early result of their efforts was the establishment of the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge in 1924.
Events from the year 1653 in England.
John Marriot and his son Richard Marriot were prominent London publishers and booksellers in the seventeenth century. For a portion of their careers, the 1645–57 period, they were partners in a family business.
Compleat may refer to:
John Dennys, a poet and fisherman, pioneered Angling poetry in England. His only work The Secrets of Angling was the earliest English poetical treatise on fishing. John Dennys may have been an acquaintance of Shakespeare.
Thomas Barker (fl.1591–1651) was an English fishing guide and author of The Art of Angling (1651).
Christopher Harvey (1597–1663) was an English clergyman and poet.
The Secrets of Angling was a book written by John Dennys. It was the earliest English poetical treatise on fishing, first published in 1613 in London. A didactic pastoral poem in 3 books, in the style of Virgil's Georgics. It was published in 4 editions until 1652, examples of which are amongst the rarest books in existence.
Otter fishing is a fishing technique which uses trained otters to fish in rivers. This method has been practised since the 6th century in various parts of the world, and is still practiced in southern Bangladesh.
The Izaak Walton Cottage is a seventeenth-century timber framed building in Shallowford, Chebsey, Staffordshire, England. It belonged to the writer Izaak Walton, best known for The Compleat Angler. The building is designated grade II, and is managed as a museum.
James Locke (1800-1867) was a 19th Century London draper who is attributed with the creating the name Tweed for the rough woollen cloth, which he was largely responsible for popularising amongst fashionable Victorian society.
Mount Izaak Walton is a 12,077-foot-elevation (3,681 meter) mountain summit located in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Fresno County of northern California, United States. It is situated in the John Muir Wilderness, on land managed by Sierra National Forest. Mount Izaak Walton ranks as the 404th-highest summit in California. Topographic relief is significant as the northwest aspect rises 1,800 feet above Izaak Walton Lake in approximately one mile. It is six miles northeast of Lake Thomas A Edison, and approximately 14 miles (23 km) south-southeast of the community of Mammoth Lakes. The peak is set on Silver Divide, so precipitation runoff from the north side of this mountain drains into Fish Creek which is a tributary of the San Joaquin River, and from the south slope to Mono Creek, also a tributary of the San Joaquin.
Thomas Maxey was a prominent English printer active in seventeenth century London.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Walton, Izaak". Encyclopædia Britannica . Vol. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
The Compleat Angler public domain audiobook at LibriVox 