HOOK, LINE AND LAUGHTER: A HAUL OF 18 HUMOROUS FISHING STORIES. Edited by Peter Haining. Illustrated by Stan McMurtry, MAC of the Daily Mail.

# 1989 1st edition. 8vo (140 x 223mm). Pp191. B/w cartoon illustrations by Stan McMurtry. Blue boards, spine titled in gilt.

# "The biggest part of a fish, wrote one small boy, is a tale. And here are eighteen such stories by men in love with the ancient art of sitting on a river bank and contemplating the timeless rush of water. All such writers know that a fisherman's true skill lies in the exercise of his imagination - and in creating a string of good-natured stories that the truth will not spoil and that laughter can only improve... Stories, for example, such as the origins of Jerome K. Jerome's monstrous trout... the unorthodox technique of H.E. Bate's Uncle Silas... the 700lb whopper ensared by Rudyard Kipling... the dramatic initiation of a young salmon fisherman in Roland Pertwee's The River God... the problems that beset Ernest Hemingway before he even reached the river bank in the Black Forest - all these tales and many more are contained in his delightful collection designed to entertain all lovers of the angling art. Here, for them, are the ones that did not get away."