THE COMPLEAT ANGLER; or, Contemplative Man's Recreation: Being a Discourse on Rivers, Fish-Ponds, Fish, and Fishing. In Two Parts: The First Written by Mr. Isaac Walton; The Second by Charles Cotton, Esq. With The Lives of the Authors: And Notes, Historical, Critical, Supplementary and Explanatory;by Sir John Hawkins
(London: for Samuel Bagster, In the Strand, 1808).
THE FIRST BAGSTER EDITION IN A GOSDEN BINDING. The Bagster printing of 1808 was the first to try an exact reprinting of the 1653 first edition. This copy in a Gosden binding of the period.
A beloved classic of the English language and what many call the finest "How-To" book ever written; Walton's ANGLER has been described as "full of wisdom, kindly humour, and charity; it is one of the most delightful and care-dispelling books in the language." "More than most authors he lives in his writings, which are the pure expression of a kind, humorous and pious soul in love with nature, while the expression itself is unique for apparent simplicity which is really elaborately studied art" (DNB). Item #33790
The First Bagster Edition. Vignette half-title, engraved portrait frontispiece, 17 illustrations of fish within the text, 15 full page engraved plates in black and white, 2 pages of engraved music, some additional wood cuts in the text. 8vo, bound in a Gosden binding of full contemporary speckled calf, the covers with double gilt fillet rules at the borders surrounding a fish in gilt at the center of the covers, the spine with raised bands gilt stopped, compartments tooled in gilt, lettered in gilt in one compartment on a black morocco label, marbled endleaves. vi, 512 pp. A very good copy with some mild rubbing to the extremities, the binding is strong, the text-block and illustrations are clean and well preserved.