A book from 1594 is still one of the most sought-after by lovers of fishing
Walton's 'The Compleat Angler,' is a classic of lazy, lakeside fishing days, and has been since the 16th century — and why, even if we don't fish, we can still use it in today's troubled times.
“Rivers and the inhabitants of the watery elements are made for wise men to contemplate and for fools to pass by without consideration. ”
― Izaak Walton, “The Compleat Angler”
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Maybe a fish might disagree with Izaak Walton, who said “God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling.”
But the author’s fellow fishers have found a spot for it next to their tackle boxes ever since 1594, the year it was published by a London bookseller. To the fisherman (or woman, or fish-fighter), it’s up there with the Bible — both an instructional work and an inspirational one.
Even though it’s written very much in the style of a 16th century clergyman — Walton was also an ironworker, and understood the value of speaking plain.
But why this book?
Because it’s not just for the angler, and not just for fishing season.
The Compleat Angler isn’t really a technical manual on how to fish as it is a seminal work on the natural world, and how to appreciate and enjoy everything it has to offer.
Essayist William Hazlitt, writing in the 1800s, called it “the best pastoral in the language.” Putting on my bookseller and historian hat for a second — that means, in normal-people terms, it’s a really great book that paints a beautiful picture of life in the countryside.
There are — and were — already many manuals about fishing published by Englishmen, literature scholar Marjorie Swann told The Izaak Walton League of America, on of the country's oldest conservation groups.
“What sets The Compleat Angler apart from these previous how-to books is Walton’s insistence that there’s so much more to being an angler than a technical knowledge of bait and tackle. For Walton, fishing is at once an environmental, social, and spiritual experience.”
It’s Walden for the “women love me, fish fear me” (or “fish love me, women fear me,” as the case may be).
It’s a book for people who don’t even have to ask if you’d rather encounter a man or a bear — we’d all pick the alligator gar.
Waterside Walden
For the people of his own time, Walton’s book offered a welcome break from the chaos that surrounded them. Walton signed his deal with Richard Marriot, a Fleet Street bookseller, to publish The Compleat Angler in 1653. It would get its first print run the next year, and times were difficult in England.
It was the days of the “other,” Civil War — the English Civil War (or “Wars,” technically). Of Roundheads and Royalists. Of those loyal to the Crown (like Walton) and those who had high hopes for Parliament.
England was in ruins by 1954. The Anglican Church, deeply loved by Walton, was gone, the king was dead, and the entire English landscape bore the scars of one of the bloodiest conflicts the country has seen on its soil before or since.
Even Thomas Hobbes, in 1651, took a cynical view of it. He described humanity’s “natural state” as “mere war… a war of all men against all men.”
But unlike Hobbes, who’d turn his pen to issues of state brutality and how to create systems of law and order, and espouse ideals of one kind of liberty, Walton explored another kind of liberty — going “angling” with friends.
Walton explored ways of finding peace in troubled times. Hobbes would look at rebuilding society from the halls of government downward. Walton — his ideas were build on recreating society recreationally, from the ground up. Freedom, liberty, and peace, for Walton, don’t come from the top down — they start on riverbanks and lakeshores.
Down by the Riverside
While it does have value as an instructional guide (even today — Walton was an avid fly fisherman), it’s not just that. It’s not just another view of Walton from down by the riverside.
Like many words of its day, it’s written as a story.
Most of the book is an ongoing conversation between fisherman Piscator and a hunter — a falconer, specifically — Venator (though later revisions changed his name). They talk about their hobbies and love of the outdoors. Piscator tries to convince Venator that fishing is both a practical hobby and good for the soul.
Piscator reminds Venator, for example, that Saints Peter, Paul and John "were all Fishers" before quoting verses from other keen anglers: Montaigne, George Herbert and John Donne. The conversation takes place over several days on a fishing trip in the Lea Valley, during which they journey from Tottenham to Ware in Hertfordshire.
And yes — that John Donne. The poet and clergyman. They were running buddies themselves. It wasn’t just name dropping for Walton. He stuck one of his best friends into his fiction, and didn’t bother asking if he should in a Facebook writing group.
The scandal.
Ahem.
“The waters are nature’s store-house, in which she locks up her rarities,” Walton wrote. Among those rarities: “the hog-fish, dog-fish, dolphin, cony-fish, parrot-fish, shark, poison-fish, and sword-fish among many incredible fish,” writes Ruth Scurr for The Times Literary Supplement.
He didn’t necessarily mention red fish, or blue fish, but the spirit is still there.
Walton talks about nature — of course, including fish — and the healing power of friendship, weaving his instructional content with poems, songs, illustrations, recipes, and more fun facts than you can shake a Roundhead at.
Man after my own heart.
In a sense, given his outlook of the value of the natural world and the value of sharing it and protecting it — Walton was among the first conservationists and environmentalists of the western world.
It captures something special, something soul-deep and universal to the human experience — about being out in the woods and dangling a cane pole into a creek.
“Men are taken to be grave,” Walton writes, “because Nature hath made them of a sowre complexion.”
They are “money-getting-men,” he writes, “men that spend all their time first in getting, and next in anxious care to keep it.”
But, “we Anglers pity them perfectly, and stand in no need to borrow their thoughts to think ourselves so happy.”
Sorry, y’all are going to have to ride in the back. My pu —
What’s that?
Oh, I’ve got you interested do I?
Well, luckily for you, my fishing buddies, I have just the thing for that.
More specifically, I have a Gumroad for that — where you can pick up your own digital copy.
In the second copy of books I’ve put together just for you, you can find a copy of The Compleat Angler, with a short biography of Walton and “The Bait,” a poem by his friend and biographical subject — John Donne.
Starting at the low, low price of “free.” Pay what you can, or check it out before you make any hard decisions. You get: a PDF of a scanned, vintage copy; EPUB, AZW3 and Mobi ebook formats (for whatever shiny thing you read on); and our undying love and support — whether you’re able to pay full-price or not.
I’m uploading the files in the background as we speak, using the magical power of friendship and the internet — so if you’re a little too quick on the draw, it’ll be up before you know it. In the meantime, I have another vintage gem — The German Shepherd Dog: In Word and Picture — by the man who started it all.
Well, he started German Shepherds, anyway.
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Til next time —
Happy tails, readers.