ASHENDENE PRESS. BERNERS, Dame Juliana. ~ A Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle.
One of 150 copies on Batchelor Ashendene paper, (a further 25 copies were printed on vellum). Wood block illustrations copied from the woodcuts used in the original Treatise as it appeared in the Boke of St Albans. Printed in Subiaco type with one red initial, otherwise printed in black. 8vo., original limp vellum, gilt lettering on spine. Very slight rubbing to the edges of the spine, otherwise a very good copy.
This charming book is taken from the Boke of St. Albans printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1496. This was the first printed book on fishing in English.
Franklin writes a typically eloquent and well-informed essay on this “small and happy book” in which he draws our attention to, among other things, the way that “Poor old Keates” re-made the illustrations with such literal veracity that he reproduced a crack in the original woodcut.
Inscribed in ink on the front free endpaper by the printer to a friend: “F. Meyrick-Jones from C.H. StJ Hornby. May, 1905”. Meyrick-Jones was a noted antiquarian, cricketer, cleric and charity worker. He worked in poor areas of London, including running a mission in a very deprived area of North Kensington where he was working when this book was given to him, and later running a school for ‘difficult children’ at Voewood near Holt in Norfolk.