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THE COMPLETE ANGLER;

OR,

_THE CONTEMPLATIVE MAN'S RECREATION_.

By

ISAAK WALTON.


Being a _Facsimile_ Reprint of the First Edition published in 1653.
With a Preface by RICHARD LE GALLIENNE.




PREFACE.


The "first edition" has been a favourite theme for the scorn of those
who love it not. "The first edition--and the worst!" gibes a modern
poet, and many are the true lovers of literature entirely insensitive
to the accessory, historical or sentimental, associations of books. The
present writer possesses a copy of one of Walton's Lives, that of
Bishop Sanderson, with the author's donatory inscription to a friend
upon the title-page. To keep this in his little library he has
undergone willingly many privations, cheerfully faced hunger and cold
rather than let it pass from his hand; yet, how often when,
tremulously, he has unveiled this treasure to his visitors, how often
has it been examined with undilating eyes, and cold, unenvious hearts!
Yet so he must confess himself to have looked upon a friend's superb
first edition of "Pickwick" though surely not without that measure of
interest which all, save the quite unlettered or unintelligent, must
feel in seeing the first visible shape of a book of such resounding
significance in English literature.

Such interest may, without fear of denial, be claimed for a facsimile
of the first edition of "The Compleat Angler" after "Robinson Crusoe"
perhaps the most popular of English classics. Thomas Westwood, whose
gentle poetry, it is to be feared, has won but few listeners, has drawn
this fancy picture of the commotion in St. Dunstan's Churchyard on a
May morning of the year 1653, when Richard Marriott first published the
famous discourse, little dreaming that he had been chosen for the
godfather of so distinguished an immortality. The lines form an
epilogue to twelve beautiful sonnets_ a propos _of the bi-centenary of
Walton's death:

 "What, not a word for thee, O little tome,
  Brown-jerkined, friendly-faced--of all my books
  The one that wears the quaintest, kindliest looks--
  Seems most completely, cosily at home
  Amongst its fellows. Ah! if thou couldst tell
  Thy story--how, in sixteen fifty-three,
  Good Master Marriott, standing at its door,
  Saw Anglers hurrying--fifty--nay, three score,
  To buy thee ere noon pealed from Dunstan's bell:--
  And how he stared and... shook his sides with glee.
  One story, this, which fact or fiction weaves.
  Meanwhile, adorn my shelf, beloved of all--
  Old book! with lavender between thy leaves,
  And twenty ballads round thee on the wall."

Whether there was quite such a rush as this on its publishing day we
have no certain knowledge, though Westwood, in his "Chronicle of the
Compleat  Angler" speaks of "the almost immediate sale of the entire
edition." According to Sir Harris Nicolas, it was thus advertised in_
The Perfect Diurnall_: from Monday, May 9th, to Monday, May 16th, 1653:

_"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. Also the Gipsee, never
till now published: Both printed for Richard Marriot, to be sold at his
shop in Saint Dunstan's Churchyard, Fleet street."

And it was thus calmly, unexcitedly noticed in the_ Mercurius
Politicus_: from Thursday, May 12, to Thursday, May 19, 1653: _"There is
newly extant, a Book of 18d. price, called the Compleat Angler, or the
Contemplative Man's Recreation, being a discourse of Fish and Fishing,
not unworthy the perusal of most Anglers. Printed for Richard Marriot,
to be sold at his shop in St. Dunstan's Churchyard, Fleet street_."

Thus for it, as for most great births, the bare announcement sufficed.
One of the most beautiful of the world's books had been born into
the world, and was still to be bought in its birthday form--for
eighteen-pence.

In 1816, Mr. Marston calculates, the market value was about L4 4s. In
1847 Dr.