DRY-FLY FISHING IN THEORY AND PRACTICE. By Frederic M. Halford ("Detached Badger" of "The Field"). 1889 first edition.

1889 1st edition. Large 8vo (170 x 258mm). Ppxii,289 + 1pp ads. Illustrated with 25 plates, three of them hand-coloured, two of them chromolithograph "illustrative plans," and the remainder uncoloured, and with text engravings, title-page printed in black and red. Dark olive / brown cloth, spine and upper board titled and ruled in gilt, top edge gilt, bevelled edges, black coated end-papers.

Widely thought of as the greatest work on the subject of flyfishing published during the twentieth century. History has not always been kind to Mr Halford, indeed there have been periods during the last one hundred years when his name and his work have been denigrated, and his reputation has been associated with an excessive purism and a narrow dogma, thought to be the product of snobbishness and an exclusive cult. These ideas have little relation to Halford's actual words or his achievement. Though he was unaware of the potential of nymph fishing in chalk streams, he nonetheless was an all round fisherman of considerable intuition and experience, and a tireless experimenter always in search of improvements, whether in flies or tackle. On the river Test in Hampshire, where so much of his pursuit of trout and grayling took place, Halford is still remembered with proper respect. His name is also revered from New York to Tokyo among the devotees of the Dry Fly. Apart from its historical value, this book is still very well worth a perusal by fly fishermen of the southern chalk streams. It is also a model of clear expression, brilliant organisation, lucid prose, and, above all, remarkable thoroughness, so typical of the pioneers of the Victorian Age.