ANGLING: THE SOLITARY VICE. By Fred Buller.

2000 1st edition. 4to (215 x 272mm). Pp180. Colour photographs, illustrations. Dark green cloth, tipped-on portrait photograph to upper board, upper board and spine titled in silver-gilt. Edition limited to 300 numbered copies.

A collection of Fred's angling essays on a medley of angling-related subjects - unusual fish such as lampreys and sturgeon, research into the earliest illustrations of fishing reels and angling in English church paintings, and memoirs of Dick Walker, Hugh Falkus, Terry Thomas and Rev. Edward Alston. From an edition limited to only 300 copies in dark green buckram, signed and numbered by the author. Chapters include: Thirty-five years of Irish fishing; The Royal sturgeon; Explaining Llandegfedd's record pike; The earliest documented capture of big pike; Churchill pike fishing; Pike swallows dog; The earliest English illustration of an angler; A fourth-century European illustration of a salmon angler; Burning and sunning the water; Some notes on Chinese fishing; The St Keverne reel; The earliest fishing reel - a new perspective; Catching a lamprey; Lampreys and the kings of England; Too few lampreys; Spawning brook lampreys of the River Test; A rod in Russia; An old man, two boys and a 202lb catfish!; Thanksgiving address; Gillies, charr and the rector's reply; The red fellow; The Macedonian fly; The blow-line; Hugh Falkus; The Rev. Edward C. Alston - a gentle Englishman; A memoir by the Rev. Edward C. Alston; Terry Thomas; Salmon and women; At the water's edge.