The Compleat Angler: And Other Meditations on the Art and Philosophy of Fishing, 15th Century to the Present, features literary works that combine sport with the contemplative spirit of angling, published from the 15th century to the present. The exhibit begins with the 17th century editions of The Compleat Angler written by Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton, with quotations from the 1676 edition woven throughout the exhibit. We also have on display digitized images of engravings from the 1822 and the 1836 editions. The exhibit is located in the Reading Room at Archives & Special Collections, 363 Hillman Library, Spring - Fall 2017.
Also included are 15th century to present-day works of art and angling-related literature with highlighted excerpts by writers that influenced, or were inspired or challenged by The Compleat Angler. On loan for this exhibit are the 1653 edition of The Compleat Angler from Special Collections at Hunt Library, Carnegie Mellon University Libraries, and the 1885 edition of The Secrets of Angling by John Dennys, from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. The other editions of The Compleat Angler are from the Bernard Horne-Izaak Walton Collection, and the Darlington and Leuba collections, all located in Archives & Special Collections at the University of Pittsburgh.
Archives & Special Collections
A&SC at Hillman Library
3960 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Phone: 412-648-8190
Email:
ULS-Archives&SpecialCollections@pitt.edu
The Complete Angler, Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton, 1822
The Complete Angler, Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton, 1822
The Compleat Angler or the Contemplative Man's Recreation
Izaak Walton, 1653
The Compleat Angler or the Contemplative Man’s Recreation
Izaak Walton, 1655
The Compleat Angler or the Contemplative Man’s Recreation
Izaak Walton, 1661
The Compleat Angler or the Contemplative Man’s Recreation
Izaak Walton, 1668
The Universal Angler, Made So, by Three Books of Fishing
Izaak Walton, Charles Cotton, and Robert Venables, 1676
(Three copies: one with Parts I, II, and III, one with Parts I and II, and one with Part II)
The Book of St. Albans
Juliana Berners and Joseph Haselwood, 1966
The Secrets of Angling
John Dennys, 1885
Reliquiae Wottonianae. Or, a Collection of Lives, Letters, Poems
Sir Henry Wotton, 1651
The Experienced Angler; or Angling Improved
Robert Venables, 1825
The Gentleman’s Recreation: In Four Parts.
Viz. Hunting, Hawking, Fowling, Fishing...
Nicholas Cox, 1697
“Rural Sports. A Georgic: Inscribed to Mr. Pope”
In Poems on Several Occasions
John Gay, 1720
The Compleat Angler:
Or, Contemplative Man’s Recreation
Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton, edited by Moses Browne, 1750
The Complete Angler: Or, Contemplative Man’s Recreation
Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton,
edited by Sir John Hawkins, 1760
Rural Sports
William Barker Daniel, [1801]-1802
The Compleat Angler or the Contemplative Man’s Recreation
Izaak Walton, edited by Samuel Bagster, 1810
The Complete Angler, or Contemplative Man’s Recreation
Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton, edited by Samuel Bagster, 1815
The Complete Angler, or Contemplative Man’s Recreation
Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton,
edited by Sir John Hawkins, 1822
An Historical and Geographical Account of the Province and Country of Pensilvania;
and of West-New-Jersey in America...
Gabriel Thomas, 1698
Travels Through the Middle Settlements in North America, in the Years 1759 and 1760; with Observations Upon the State of the Colonies
Andrew Burnaby, 1798
An Authentic Historical Memoir of the Schuylkill Fishing Company of the State in Schuylkill
William Milnor, 1830
Grays Ferry. (on the Schuylkill)
George Lehman (painter and engraver) and James Steel (engraver)
The Founding Fish
John McPhee, 2002
The Cabinet of Natural History and American Rural Sports with Illustrations
Thomas Doughty, 1830-1834
The Complete Angler: or, The Contemplative Man’s Recreation
Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton, edited by Sir Harris Nicolas, 1836
The Works of Washington Irving
Washington Irving, 1840
“Head Waters of the Juniata.”
In The History and Topography of the United States of North America
Thomas Cole (artist and painter), c.1834
Adventures in the Wilds of the United States and British American Provinces
Charles Lanman, 1856
Izaak Walton: His Wallet Booke
Izaak Walton, edited by Joseph Crawhall
Tenting To-Night: A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in
Glacier Park and the Cascade Mountains
Mary Roberts Rinehart, 1918
“The Gold-Button Fish”
In Good Housekeeping
Mary Roberts Rinehart, 1932
(In Box 12, Folder 10)
“The Fisherman”
In The Wild Swans At Coole:
Other Verses and a Play in Verse
W. B. (William Butler) Yeats, 1917
Tales of Swordfish and Tuna
Zane Grey, [1927]
The Compleat Angler:
or, The Contemplative Man’s Recreation
Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton, edited by John Major, [1927]
Morgan’s Bay
Alfred Joseph Casson
Trout Stream
Gwen Raverat
Muriel Foster’s Fishing Diary
Muriel Foster, 1996
Fly Fishing
Viscount Edward Grey of Fallodon, [c1930]
Abinger
Clifford Webb
Otter
Robert Gibbings
Two Trout Feeding
Robert Gibbings
The Roving Angler
Herbert E. Palmer, 1947
“Big Two Hearted River”
In This Quarter
Ernest Hemingway, [1925]
A Moveable Feast
Ernest Hemingway, 1964
“On the Blue Water: A Gulf Stream Letter”
In Esquire
Ernest Hemingway, 1936
The Old Man and the Sea
Ernest Hemingway, 1952
“The Art of Fiction XXI”
In The Paris Review
Ernest Hemingway and George Plimpton, 1958
The Western Angler:
An Account of Pacific Salmon and Western Trout
Roderick Haig-Brown, [1939]
Fisherman’s Summer
Roderick Haig-Brown, 1959
Spring Beauty.
Boyd Everett Hanna
The Intruder
Robert Traver, 2012
Rio Tesuque
Gustave Baumann, [1946, 1939]
Nets
Seong Moy, [c.1965]
Trout Fishing in America: A Novel
Richard Brautigan, 1967
A River Runs Through It
Norman Maclean, 1989
The Longest Silence: A Life in Fishing
Thomas McGuane, 1999
The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine.
John Speed, 1676
Shakespeare, William, (1564-1616).
Mr. William Shakespear’s Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies.
Faithfully Reproduced in Facsimile from the Edition of 1685.
William Shakespeare, 1904
University Library System - Special Collections Department - f PR2751 .A45 1904
The Piscatorial Atlas of the North Sea,
English and St. George’s Channels
O. T. (Ole Theodor) Olsen, 1883
“Captains Courageous”:
A Story of the Grand Banks
Rudyard Kipling, 1897
Something of Myself:
For My Friends, Known and Unknown
Rudyard Kipling, 1937
Some Wood Cuts of Men of Letters of the 19th Century
Robert Bryden, 1899
All Fishermen Are Liars
John Gierach, [2014]
Fishing Stories
Henry Hughes, 2013
The Fish’s Eye: Essays about Angling and the Outdoors
Ian Frazier, 2002
The Complete Angler: A Connecticut Yankee Follows in the Footsteps of Walton
James Prosek, [1999]
Trout: An Illustrated History
James Prosek, 1997
We would like to thank the University Library Systems’ Archives & Special Collections at the Archives Service Center, the Digital Research Library, the Johnstown Campus Library, and Web Services for their generous assistance in preparing this exhibit.
We also want to extend a special thanks to our student researchers, Cassie Frank the iSchool Field Experience Intern and Patti Smith our undergraduate research assistant, whose investigations provided valuable material for our fishing expedition. All materials from the collections are available for study in the Reading Room upon request to Archives & Special Collections, 363 Hillman Library, University of Pittsburgh.
The Compleat Angler LibGuide was created by Archives & Special Collections student employees Cassie Frank, from the MLIS program, and Patti Smith, from the Department of Anthropology, under the guidance of Archives & Special Collections staff member Margaret McGill.
The Complete Angler, Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton, 1822
