Izaak Walton, one of the earliest English biographers who is best remembered as the author of The Compleat Angler, was born in the parish of St. Mary's, at Stafford, on August 9, 1593. His father, Gervase Walton, was an innkeeper who died when the boy was five. By the time Walton was twenty he was living in London, apprenticed to his brother-in-law, a prosperous clothier. His marriage to Rachel Floud, a relative of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, in 1626 allied him with a prominent clerical family, and as a parishioner at St. Dunstan's Church Walton became a close friend of its vicar, John Donne. <
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'It would sweeten a man's temper at any time to read it,' wrote essayist Charles Lamb some years after this novel was first published in 1653. Of course, The Compleat Angler is much more than just a 17th century 'how-to' guide to catching and cooking fish... SEE MORE