A Book on Angling: Being a Complete Treatise on the Art of Angling in Every Branch with Explanatory Plates, Etc. by FRANCIS, Francis - 1867

London. Longmans, Green, and Co. 1867, 1867. 1st Edition. Hardcover. thick12mo, 20cm, the first edition, xi,429p., with 5 hand colour plates, (including frontis), 10 plates, index, in the original cloth expertly restored, a fine copy, rare With a Signed Letter from the author. A classic on angling. "Francis formulated the case for the dry fly more sensibly than it was to be stated again for the next forty years, saying "Now, there are two ways of fly-fishing, viz, with the dry fly and with the wet fly. Some fishermen always use one plan, others almost as pertinaciously use the other. To use either of them invariably is wrong. Sometimes the one will be found to kill fast and sometimes the other. I fine waters, particularly in the southern countries, where fly-fishing is certainly more of a systematic art than is in the north, the dry fly is greatly used, and with very deadly effect at times. In very calm, bright and still weather, when a wet fly will often be useless, the dry fly will be taken most confidingly. In rough windy weather the wet fly preferable,." - Gingrich. Fishing in Print., p200.