Walton, Izaak and Charles Cotton

The Compleat Angler; or The Contemplative Man's Recreation. London: T. Maxey for Richard Marriot, 1653 — The Compleat Angler. Being Instructions how to angle for a Trout or Grayling in a Clear Stream. Part II. London: Printed for Richard Marriot and Henry Brome, 1676

2  parts in 2 volumes, 8vo (5 5/8 x 3 1/2 in.; 142 x 89 mm; part 2 somewhat larger). Integral letterpress titles with engraving, woodcut ornamental initials in both partis. Part 1: 6 text engravings of fish (trout, pike, carp, tench, perch, barbel), 2 pages (P4v and P5r) printed with words and music of Henry Lawes's "Anglers Song" (the bass voice printed upside down to allow two singers to face one another and share the book), a few headlines in part 1 a trifle shaved, lacking final blank R4 in part 1, minor repair to fore-edge of title-page in part 2.  Fine nineteenth-century crimson morocco gilt to seventeenth-century style, black morocco lettering pieces gilt, gilt dentelles, marbled endpapers, edges gilt; extremities lightly rubbed. Modern brown folding case, green morocco onlays gilt, by Robson & Co.,London.

A. Edward Newton (bookplates, his sale, Parke-Bernet, part 3, 30 October 1941, lot 486, to Sessler) — Charles J. Rosenbloom (bookplates) — Sotheby's, 14 June 1993, lot 345

Exhibited: Exhibition of Sporting Prints and Paintings, 9 March–8 April 1948.

Coigney 1 and 6; Grolier English 31; Horne 1 and 6; Oliver1 and 6; Pforzheimer 10048; Westwood & Satchell 217 and 219; Wing W661 and W666

First edition, The A. E. Newton—Charles Rosenbloom copy, with most of the type-setting errors tabulated by Horne with the exception of page 88, line 10 which correctly reads Fordidg. Although they are of no significance in indicating priority of issue, it is traditional to mention two of the points: R3r is in the first state, reading contention instead of contentment; and F4r is in the presumptive first state, with the engraving of the trout printed at the foot of the page.

Walton "gave angling not a how-to-book of enduring utility, though even that could be said of Cotton's part, but the greatest literary idyll that any language has ever bestowed on any sport" (Gingrich, The Fishing in Print, 17). Cotton's treatise forms part of the fifth and last edition to be published in Walton's lifetime.  A very good copy with distinguished provenance.