THE COMPLEAT ANGLER; OR, THE CONTEMPLATIVE MAN'S RECREATION:

New Edition: lviii, 319 pages, illustrated throughout with full-page and text line drawings by Sullivan, publisher's green cloth elaborately gilt titled and decorated  on the upper cover and spine lightly shelf worn, top edge gilt, other edges uncut, contents clean, bookplate on front paste-down endpaper, a very good copy.

 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-28653)  'Walton, Izaak (1593–1683), author and biographer....The Compleat Angler was conceived as dialogue between men travelling on foot who each represented a different recreation. In the first edition there were two, Piscator (fisherman) and Viator (traveller); in the second and much expanded edition of 1655 the two had become three: Viator was now Venator (hunter), and Auceps (falconer) was added. By this means the art of fishing was introduced, defended, and expounded: its strong precedent in the fishermen apostles of the New Testament was established, the detail of baiting for, catching, and cooking different kinds of fish was catalogued, and the whole was accompanied by aphorisms which would show the reader what it might mean to live well.'