Beschreibung:

The Compleat Angler or the Contemplative Man's Recreation. Part. I. Being a Discourse of Rivers, Fish-ponds, Fish, and Fishing. The Fifth Edition, much corrected and enlarged, printed for Richard Marriot, 1676, title-page with decorative engraved cartouche (lightly toned and marked, and close-trimmed to imprint), without general title, letterpress engravings, R1 supplied from another copy, bound with The Compleat Angler, Being Instructions how to angle for a Trout or Grayling in a clear Stream. Part. II., 1st edition, printed for Richard Marriott, 1676, title-page with printed monogram, imprimateur leaf with discreet marginal repairs, both parts with intermittent minor worming to blank lower margins (just touching date on second imprint), repairs to preliminary blanks, bookplate of Richard Adams, hinges neatly strengthened, early 20th century brown panelled calf, rebacked preserving original spine, and recornered, 8vo Coigney 6. Pforzheimer 1052. Westwood & Satchell pages 219-20. Wing W666. The Universal Angler was published with a third part, by Robert Venables, not included in this copy, but as stated on the general title-page the work could be had 'bound together, or sold each of them severally'. Angling was an important occupation for Richard Adams throughout his life. In his autobiography The Day Gone By, he describes his first sighting of a trout as a small boy, on a visit to the Kennet. On a subsequent outing to the river Adams came across Dr. Mottram, a well-known fisherman and friend of his father. He was so fascinated at watching the great man land a trout that he writes: "From that time on I knew I wanted to be a fly fisherman and bring home trout for supper". Adams had the run of a large stretch of the Kennet during his teenage years, thanks to the generosity of one of his father's patients. "Since those days I have fished in Connemara, Wales, New Zealand and Virginia, but never so idyllically and happily as during those far-off, pre-war, adolescent days on the Kennet below Greenham". When home on leave for a fortnight during the war, it was to the Kennet Adams went for the solace that fishing provided, and whilst there he caught "the best trout I have ever yet taken from that happy river". "I remember thinking'" he writes, "that while this would probably be the last trout I'd ever be likely to catch, nevertheless that evening couldn't, now, be taken away." (Richard Adams, The Day Gone By, An Autobiography, 1990, pages 61-62, 174, 360-61). (1)