Izaak Walton: Father of a Dream
In his book, The Compleat Angler, Izaak Walton, who died three hundred years ago this month, provided generations of anglers with a technique manual, a pastoral idyll - and an elegant apologia for their pastime. An Article by John Lowerson.
Izaak Walton died on December 15th, 1683, at the age of ninety. His book, The Compleat Angler , is held to be the most influential work ever written on sport fishing; certainly it is by far the most frequently reprinted. His contemporary importance was much greater than that of the author of an idyll and his subsequent rediscovery has placed him as the father-figure, if by no means the actual progenitor, of the largest single participant outdoor recreation in the industrial world. Because of this role his life has been moderately well-plotted by scholars; many of the facts are clear yet there remain questions about his personal experiences which have rarely been treated by historians of seventeenth-century England.
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