The Compleat Angler or the Contemplative Man's Recreation

This seventeenth-century book, begun in 1653 and later extended, is a dialogue in which Piscator teaches Venator how to fish while arguing that angling is the most contemplative of field sports. They walk riverbanks, discuss worms, flies, and the characters of fish, and pause for songs and rural meals. Charles Cotton's continuation shifts the scene to the Dove and sets out fly-fishing in more technical detail, including the building of a fishing-house. The speakers prefer a moderate, sociable country life to ambition. The work is instruction wrapped in pastoral conversation, not a travel narrative.

Bound in full green cloth with a border of rules in blind; endleaves with a design in grey by Lamb. White dust-jacket printed in grey and black.