[John SMITH]. Compleat Fisher ... Sixth Edition … Price 9d. London: for G. Conkers, [1730?]. Rare.

From the Dobo collection.

The first 36 lots in this sale are from the collection of Francis Dobo (1908-1998)

J.[ohn] S.[MITH]. The Compleat Fisher: or, the true art of angling. Being a clear and speedy way of taking all sorts of fresh-water fish, with the worm, fly, paste, and other baits, in their proper seasons: ... By J. S. a brother of the angle. The Sixth Edition … Price 9d. London: printed for G. Conkers, [1730?, according to ESTC]. 18mo (4 ¼ x 2 ¼ inches; 108 x 57mm). Pp.[i-ii]; 1-164. Woodcut frontispiece, 7 small woodcut illustrations (Pp.17/18 small hole, 143/144 small tear, 163/164 with small voids to outer margin). Contemporary calf, covers ruled in blind (damage to joints and head of the spine [see images], rear free endpaper torn with loss).

A rare early ‘pocket guide’ or manual. ESTC notes that this work was “First published in 1696 as ’The true art of angling’.” The 1730 publication date is based on the fact that Conkers published a fifth edition dated 1725.

Westwood & Satchell: “This minute work … forms one of the marked features of most angling book collections, partly from its merits as a manual, but far more from its rarity, only a few copies of the earlier issues having escaped the wear and tear of time”

ESTC N44588 (listing four locations: BL, Houghton Library, NYPL, and Princeton); Westwood & Satchell, p.183.

Francis Dobo: the “epitome of a 20th Century intellectual” Hungarian born Francis F. Dobo (1908-1998) was an important figure in the world of publishing, contemporary literature and photography for over half a century. He was lifelong friends with the renowned Hungarian masters of candid photography, Brassaï and André Kertész, first in Hungary and later in Paris in the 1930s. It was in Paris he encountered Henry Miller, Louis-Ferdinand Celine and Raymond Queneau: he corresponded and supported Miller from then on, and subsequently became Queneau’s U.S. agent.  Love of books and literature seems to have been a family trait: his uncle was Gabriel Wells (1861-1946), one of the two most important rare book dealers of his generation. The present selection includes a small number of books which belonged to Wells, with the rest being a cross section of the best of the contemporary literature which was such an important part of Francis’ life. William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Arthur Koestler, Christopher Isherwood, Norman Mailer, Franz Kafka are all here !