The Experienc'd Angler. [VENABLES (Robert)].

The Experienc'd Angler, or Angling Improved.

Engraved additional title by Vaughan, with contemporary or early hand-colouring. 10 engravings of fishes in the text.

First Edition. 12mo. [143 x 92 x 20 mm]. [7]ff, 105, [7] pp. Bound in contemporary sheepskin (later endleaves, a later label now missing from the spine, foot of the spine neatly repaired, a little worn). Contained within a new green cloth drop-over box.
[London] sold by Richard Marriott, [1662].

Wing V183. Westwood & Satchell, p.213.

Lacking the printed title-page, which does not appear have been bound in. The full-title is The Experienc'd Angler: or Angling Improved. Being a general discourse of angling; imparting many of the aptest wayes and choicest experiments for the taking of most sorts of fish in pond or river. London: printed for Richard Marriot, and are to be sold at his shop in St. Dunstan's Church-yard, 1662. The blank lower corner of leaf E6 and a small strip at the outer margin of H5 have been torn away, there is some minor browning and foxing and occasional light damp-staining, and there are a number of contemporary ink corrections. It is still a good copy.

Robert Venables (1612-1687) rose to the rank of colonel within the parliamentary army, distinguishing himself first in Cheshire, and then commanding forces in the "pacification" of Ireland. He was appointed, jointly with William Penn, to command Cromwell's planned attack on the Southern West Indies. The mission was a disaster. Venables and Penn fell out, failing to take Hispaniola in April 1655, with Venables seeking compensation by invading Jamaica. This was aborted after taking the capital, for fear of a guerilla campaign, and Penn fled back to England with Venables following in hot pursuit. Both were subjected to the displeasure of Cromwell and the council, and were interred in the Tower for a short time. The West Indies debacle effectively ended Venables's career and he returned to Cheshire to languish in obscurity. He evidently sought solace in angling and he notes that the minds of anglers are "usually more calm than others, especially hunters and falkners".

The Experienc'd Angler passed through five editions in Venables lifetime, though no copy of a second edition has been recorded. ESTC online records nine copies of this first edition, with only the British Library and Bodleian in the British Isles. A copy was sold at Bonhams in London, 27/6/2006, lot 169, and made £16,800. It had the printed title and was in a modern binding. The two page preface "To his ingenious Friend the Author On his Angling Improv'd" was written by Isaac Walton, whose Compleat Angler was first published by Richard Marriot in 1653. The ten engraved vignettes of fish appear in both books. This work offers advice on the making of tackle (and the best places to buy it), artifical flies, the various sorts of baits, and how to keep them, the preferred haunts of different fish and when best and when not to angle.

With the pre-1938 Maggs Bros cost code "uoso" and the bookplate of Oliver Collett.

Stock no. ebc2659