A BOOK ON ANGLING: BEING A COMPLETE TREATISE ON THE ART OF ANGLING IN EVERY BRANCH WITH EXPLANATORY PLATES, ETC. By Francis Francis. Flyfisher's Classic Library de luxe edition.

(1867) 1996 new edition. 8vo (165 x 242mm). Pp520. Colour plates and b/w illustrations, hand marbled eps, gilt edges. Fully bound in leather, raised bands. Buckram presentation box.

Writing in 1920, Sir Herbert Maxwell says: "I have never detected any fallacy in Francis's precepts for such branches of the fisher craft as I have practised, neither have I handled any book which gives such succinct and trustworthy instruction in every form of fresh-water angling . His experience was universal, his knowledge encyclopaedic." In addition to much information on contemporary trout and fishing methods, Francis devotes more than one hundred pages to the dressing of salmon flies. The colour plates are magnificent. Although first published in 1867, FFCL has chosen the text and illustrations of the most complete and revised edition of the fifth edition of 1880 with the additions of Sir Herbert Maxwell's eight page Introduction of 1920 plus the Francis Francis Prefaces to both the first and second editions. This is a copy of the de luxe Flyfisher's Classic Library edition. Only 65 copies were produced thus, each incorporating a salmon fly tied by the brilliant Danish tyer Flemming Andersen, set within a bespoke mount inside the front board. Six different flies were used for this edition - The Snow Fly, The Switching Sandy, The Black Dog, The Royal, The Owenmore, The Old Blue. The book is bound in dark green goatskin with three raised bands and gilt titles to the spine, all edges gilt, gold blocking to the upper board and hand-marbled end-papers. Presented within a dark green buckram-bound, silk-lined book box with lifter ribbon. A very handsome edition of this classic work.