WALTON, Isaac (1593-1683) and COTTON, Charles (1630-1687)

The compleat angler, being a discourse of Fish and Fishing

London: Printed for S. Bagster, in the Strand, 1810. 12 mo (13 x 17 cm). Pagination summary: [18], [1]-215, [216-217] 218-246 and 6 fish engravings to text. The title-page is followed by the title-page of the 1653 edition with an engraved cartouche. Bound in contemporary full calf, gilt tooled spine, light rubbing to edges.

A good tight copy, very scarce in this condition.

The cartouch of the 1653 edition, this is the first edition, is peculiar and may be understood as a message avant la lettre. The artist arranged 4 dolphins and 2 bunches of fish around a plaque on which an advertisment is inscribed. It is a preludium to a bible text, John xxi, 3, inviting the disciples and probably also the reader to go a fishing. The combination of such a commendatory text and an appealing image is quite unique in seventeenth-century painting and drawing. There are six silver engravings of a trout, a pike, a carp, a tench, a perch and a barbel in the text printed on leaves which are on heavier paper and tipped in. There are two plates of music, the second printed upside down, complete and similar to as Coigney No 20. At the foot of the verso of the title-page is the printer’s imprint ‘Printed by Mercier and Chervet, Bartholomew Close, London’ and it also appears at the foot of page 246. See the hand-coloured copy of the 1810 edition as well.

Price: €400