A BOOK ON ANGLING: BEING A COMPLETE TREATISE ON THE ART OF ANGLING IN EVERY BRANCH WITH EXPLANATORY PLATES, ETC. By Francis Francis. Third edition, revised and improved.

(1867) 1872 3rd edition. Small 8vo (135 x 202mm). Ppxvi,482 + 2pp ads and 32pp publisher's catalogue. Sixteen engraved plates, six of them hand-coloured. Maroon cloth, blind-stamped decoration and border to upper and lower board, spine titled in gilt.

Two pages of tackle advertisements and a 32 page catalogue, dated August 1872, of Longmans books at rear. The engraved plates are of fishing tackle and flies. Four of the six fine hand-coloured plates are of classic salmon flies, and over 100 pages of the text are devoted to tying salmon flies. Further editions were published in 1876 (4th), 1880 (5th), 1885(6th) and 1920. One of the greatest and most comprehensive angling books. Good section on pike with plates of rigs and flights". His main book, covering every aspect of angling, coarse, spinning and fly, A Book On Angling, was far in advance of anything that had been published before. Some of it is still quoted, notably this: 'The judicious and perfect application of dry, wet and mid-water fly fishing stamps the finished fly fisher with the hallmark of efficiency.' " (From a newspaper article by Conrad Voss Bark). "...in going over the last Edition of this work I have found much more to add, amplify, and explain than I could have supposed possible. Above twenty pages of new matter, scattered at intervals through the work, have been added; a good deal has been changed and rescinded; even the illustrations - more particularly as regards spinning-tackle - I have seen fit to alter and amend; and I have added a new plate of salmon flies, many old salmon-fishers having advised me to do so". (From the author's preface to the third edition). The author notes in his preface that the first and second editions "...sold more rapidly than any other Angling book produced during the last quarter of a century".