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Crawhall, Joseph (1821–1896).
One of only 40 copies. The Compleatest Angling Booke That Euer Was Writ, Being Done Oute if Ye Hebrewe and Other Tongues by a Person of Honor.
Publisher: Privately printed, Coquetdale, Northumberland;
Date of Publication: 1859
Stock Code: 10932
First Edition. One of only 40 copies written, engraved and printed “for friends”. Quarto, unpaginated throughout; blank, title page, pp. [194] with 97 text leaves printed recto only, of which 2 pages either rubricated or hand coloured by the artist. With 30 mounted etched plates on india paper of which 3 are hand-coloured by the author. Brown full morocco with bevelled boards and 5 raised bands; gilt titles to spine and floral decoration in black to compartments with black fillets and further embellishments to boards; all edges gilt; marbled endpapers. With a letter from Crawhall to Oswin John Charlton dated 1892 laid-in. Leather lightly surface scuffed with faint traces of polish. Etched bookplate of William Davison to front paste-down and armorial bookplate of Oswin John Charlton to ffep; “With the Author’s Compliments” boldly inscribed to p. [9]. An excellent copy. The author's first book, published anonymously. Handmade in every respect and limited to 40 copies “for friends” Crawhall’s Angling Booke is a legendary rarity among angling collectors. This copy curiously bound without 31st ‘plate’ - the engraved initial letter at the start of the text, as well as the usual watercolour of the trout found in most copies; every copy we have handled has been different. The letter, on headed paper from Crawhall’s London address, refers to Charlton’s profession and to publications relating to the Radcliffe family of Cumberland and Northumberland, and to his own “desperate attempt at being a young man” despite being then in his sixties. Charlton, one of the Charltons of Hesleyside in Northumberland, was alocal antiquary who wrote for “Archaelogia Aeliana”, the journal of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne. "A very curious and original work and one of the chief rarities of the angling bibliophile's collection... only forty copies were struck off for private circulation." W & S. £4000.00