West, Leonard

The Natural Trout Fly and its Imitation: Being an Angler's Record of Insects Seen at the Waterside and the Method of Making their Imitations. St. Helens: Published by the Author, [1912]



In 8s (9 x 5 3/4; 229 x 146 mm). 13 color plates and 3 full-page illustrations after West, 102 flies displayed in 9 felt-lined sunken compartments on 5 heavy board mounts; offsetting from flies to verso of card mounts, felt on plate IX spotted.  Publisher's crushed green morocco lettered gilt on upper cover and spine, marbled endpapers, edges gilt; expertly rebacked, minor rubbing on upper board edge. Green cloth folding case.

Gee 104; Hampton 97; Kerridge 83; Litchfield 74 

First edition, deluxe issue with the specimen flies. West's text—put before the public with "considerable diffidence"—was based entirely on his personal observations; he was persuaded by a piscatorial companion, J. Unsworth, to turn his private notebook into a guide for other anglers. The success of West's method was his ability to interpret "the general or composite appearance of several insects ... from the fishes' point of view" (p.144), resulting in a "highly original and excellent" book (Hampton).

The size of the deluxe issue is not known: Kerridge characterized it as "a few copies," and West himself advised C. S. Collinson in a November 1912 letter mounted on the rear pastedown of the Litchfield copy (Sotheby's, 29 November 2001, lot 136) that "The supply of these volumes is much short of demand so you can easily dispose of it at a premium if desired."