Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern
Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern
Lot Closed
July 18, 01:03 PM GMT
Estimate
60,000 - 80,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Izaak Walton
The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative man's Recreation. Being a Discourse of Fish and Fishing, Not unworthy the perusal of most Anglers. London: T. Maxey for Richard Marriot, 1653
FIRST EDITION, small 8vo (138 x 84mm.), engraved title within piscatorial cartouche, ten engraved vignettes of fish in text, two engraved pages of music by Henry Lawes, with R3r in first state (with the misreading of "contention" for "contentment", corrected in a contemporary hand), nineteenth-century dark green morocco gilt by F. Bedford, spine with raised bands in six compartments, citron morocco labels in second and third compartments, gilt edges, marbled endpapers, housed within a modern green half morocco collector's box, a few leaves very slightly shaved at margins,final three leaves neatly extended at outer margins with a few letters in skillful facsimile, extremities very slightly rubbed
A CHOICE COPY OF THE RARE FIRST EDITION OF THE MOST FAMOUS WORK IN ANGLING LITERATURE, WITH A DISTINGUISHED NINETEENTH CENTURY PROVENANCE. This much-loved work is a fishing manual, literary classic, and a celebration of contemplation and the traditional natural order written in quiet opposition to Cromwell's regime. "...Sir, There are many men that are by others taken to be serious grave men, which we contemn and pitie; men of sowre complexiouns; mony-getting-men, that spend all their time first in getting, and next in anxious care to keep it: men that are condemn'd to be rich, and alwayes discontented, or busie. For these poor-rich-men, wee Anglers pitie them ... For (trust me, Sir) we enjoy a contentednesse above the reach of such dispositions...".
Walton's work contains "The Angler's Song" by the leading mid-seventeenth-century English songwriter Henry Lawes (1596-1662), with the second page printed upside down to enable two singers to sing facing each other. The charming engravings of fish have been variously attributed to Lombart, Faithorn, or Vaughan.
LITERATURE
Coigney 1; ESTC R202374; Horne 1; Oliver 1; Pforzheimer 1048; Westwood & Satchell , p. 217 ("Copies rarely reach the auction room"); Wing W661
PROVENANCE
James Rimington-Wilson (1822-1877) of Broomhead Hall, Yorkshire, strong amateur chess player and noted collector of books on chess and other sports: ownership inscription to verso of front free endpaper; George Armin Goyder (1908-1997), businessman, author, Anglican layman, bibliophile (with particular expertise on literature of the English Reformation), and president of the William Blake Society: armorial bookplate