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April's Book of the Month selection is: Isaak Walton and Charles Cotton. The Complete Angler. Philadelphia, 1880-1886. 11 volumes. Edited by the Rev. George W. Bethune. Please, come view the our selection in the Reading Room, Department of Special Collection, 6th floor, E.S Bird Library.

The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative Man's Recreation was first published in 1653 and immediately found such an appreciative audience that an enlarged second edition appeared in 1654. Two more editions appeared in 1661 and 1668. Then, in 1676, a revised fifth edition was published, for which Walton asked his friend Charles Cotton to write a second part entitled "The Compleat Angler: Being Directions How to Angle for Trout or Grayling in a Clear Stream." At the request of Walton, this edition was used as the basis for all subsequent editions. By the end of the Nineteenth Century the work had been reprinted 180 times; the count for the Twentieth Century numbers much more than this.

What has caused the enduring popularity of this leisurely book on fishing? When it was first published it offered a refreshing antidote to the excesses of the Puritan government then in power in England. Walton's simple writing style and genial personality reminded readers of better times. This genuineness of spirit has drawn countless later readers whose daily lives are marked by machines, wars, deprivations, and the "rat race." It is not a guide on how to fish, but on how to enjoy fishing. Fishing is an art: "Oh, sir, doubt not that angling is an art. Is it not an art to deceive a trout with an artificial fly?" But, even more to Walton, it is also the perfect reason for the true contemplation of nature:

I in these flowery meads would be
These crystal streams should solace me
To whose harmonious bubbling noise
I with my angle would rejoice,
Sit here, and see the turtle dove
Court his chaste mate to acts of love.

The Book of the Month is curated by Kenneth Lavender, Rare Book Librarian.