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 "The year two thousand and three marks the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Izaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler. First advertised in The Perfect Diurnall (Monday, May 9th to Monday, May 16th, 1653) as ‘The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative Man’s Recreation, being a discourse of Fish and Fishing, not unworthy the perusal of most Anglers, of 18 pence price. Written by Iz. Wa.’ and sold by Richard Marriot at his shop in St. Dunstan’s Churchyard, Fleet Street, the remarkable bibliographical history of this angling manual is a testament to the work’s perennial fascination and appeal both to the practising angler and to the general enthusiast ‘outside’ the sport who ‘delight[s] exceedingly, in imagination, to accompany that gentle old man abroad in his various rambles, and listen to the enthusiastic panegyrics he is perpetually bestowing upon the cunning art to which he was wedded’. The most recent bibliography of Walton’s Angler by Rodolphe L. Coigney describes 456 editions or reissues up to 1987—and new editions continue to be published." |
