CHALK STREAM STUDIES. By Charles Kingsley. Flyfisher's Classic Library Deluxe Edition.

(1858) 1997 new edition. 8vo (160 x 240mm). Pp64. Not illustrated. Full dark blue leather, spine titled in gilt, gilt FFCL logo, silk marker. Edition limited to 150 numbered copies, each with an Alder fly tied by Annie Douglas set in front.

First published in Fraser's Magazine in 1858, and later included Kingsley's "Prose Idylls: New and Old" in 1873, this delightfully written and consistently entertaining essay provides a joyous description of flyfishing near London 150 years ago. The title is misleading: it is not concerned solely with chalkstream fishing as we know it, for Kingsley fished the Thames and the sluggish green Loddon and Wey, as well as the Test. His technique was to fish (on bended knee) big hairy flies close to the bank, and he considered a large repertoire of flies superfluous. He was a fan of W. C. Stewart, whose Practical Angler came out in 1857, just before this work. Kingsley corresponded with Stewart about entomology (a science which both men treated with considerable scepticism as a guide to catching fish). Charles Kingsley, parson, author of those Victorian classics The Water Babies and Westward Ho!, was one of the most popular writers of the age, and Queen Victoria's favourite preacher - although there is nothing pious about this lively and superbly written account of trout fishing. He fishes hard, as befits the original "muscular Christian," only stopping when it is too dark to see and there is no more sherry in the flask. This is a Flyfisher's Classic Library de luxe edition in full leather and containing an actual Black Alder fly tied by Annie Douglas.