AN ANGLER'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. By Frederic M. Halford "Detached Badger" of "The Field." With an introduction by William Senior, Editor of "The Field." Flyfisher's Classic Library edition.

(1903) 1998 new edition. 8vo (160 x 240mm). Ppxxxiv,286. B/w photographs, new preface by John Halford. Fully bound in tan bonded leather, gilt, silk marker and slipcase. Edition limited to 950 numbered copies.

This edition includes new facsimile plates of Halford's original manuscript, as well as a new preface by F.M.'s great grandson, John Halford. "...a fascinating celebration of a lifelong obsession with trout, trout streams and trout-stream insects. An Angler's Autobiography is just that, the story of Halford's love of fishing, from age 6 to 60. The eminent dry-fly practitioner is happy to tell us about his early days paternostering for pike, ledgering for barbel and tightcorking fat lobworms for perch and chub - dastardly Nottingham tactics for coarse fish. He even recalls experimenting with fly-fishing on salt water in the 1860s. But after being smitten by the sight of trout rising to 'upright-winged floating duns,' Halford's passion turns to chalk-stream fishing. Beyond paying tribute to his friendship with Marryat, Halford barely mentions his own theories and accomplishments. Like all good fishing writers, he knows the joy of a fishing life is in the quirky details - his love of cane over greenheart, memories of a black Lab that retrieved hung trout flies, the pleasure of testing new water and of being bested by tough fish. Best of all, Halford's autobiography gives us, in words and photographs, wonderful detail about fishing the Test and the Itchen in their Victorian heyday..." (Christopher Camuto, Gray's Sporting Journal, Feb/March 1999).