AN ANGLING LIBRARY AND SOME OF 

 ITS TREASURES 



By Daniel B. Fearing, Newport, R. I. 



This library of books on angling, fishing, fisheries, 

 and fish culture, now numbering over twelve thousand 

 volumes and pamphlets in twenty different languages,* 

 had its genesis in the year 1890 in the form of a scrap- 

 book on trout and trout fishing. From that scrap-book 

 began the collection of books entirely on trout and trout 

 fishing, then were added books with chapters on those 

 subjects and so on until the entire four heads mentioned 

 above were gradually drawn in and the library began 

 to grow. 



It is, of course, an easy matter to obtain the com- 

 moner run of books on angling, that is to say, the pop- 

 ular books of the day. Most of them, it would seem from 

 careful collation, are stolen goods taken from other and 

 earlier writers of "pot boilers" on the same subject. 



As the date of publication goes further back, one 

 would naturally suppose the value would correspond- 

 ingly rise, but this is not so. There are many angling 

 books with an imprint of before 1800, that are priced 

 in English and Scotch second-hand bookseller's catalogs 

 at less than one shilling and six pence or two shillings, 

 and when sold at auction, are usually lumped in one 

 lot of from half a dozen to a dozen and sold for perhaps 

 half a crown the lot. 



The foundation stone of an angling library is naturally 

 the first five editions of Izaak Walton's, "The Compleat 

 Angler," the editions that were printed before his death. 

 Of these five, the first, printed in 1653, THE FIRST 

 WALTON, stands at the head. 



•Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, Flemish, French, German, 

 Greek, Hindostanee, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Norwegian, 

 Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish. 



