WALTON, Izaak, English author: b. Staf ford, 9 Aug. 1593; d. Winchester, 15 Dec. 1683. After receiving a school education in his native town he went to London and was apprenticed to an ironmonger. In 1618 he was made free of the Ironmongers' Company and seems to have retired with a competency in 1644. The statement frequently made that he was a semp ster or haberdasher is unsupported by research. He early became closely acquainted with Dr. John Donne, Sir Henry Wotton and other famous men; and was a strong royalist and the friend of. prominent royalists. Doubtless, after Marston Moor, he devoted himself much to fishing. Walton's fame rests on 'The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative Man's Recreation : Being a Discourse of Fish and Fishing, Not Unworthy the Perusal of Most Anglers.' It was published in 1653, and went through five editions in his lifetime. The fifth edition, is sued in 1676, contained, as a second part, Charles Cotton's treatise on fly-fishing, written to correspond with Walton's, and designated 'Instructions how to Angle for Trout or Gray ling in a Clear Stream.' The chief subsequent editions are those by Moses Browne (1750), Sir John Hawkins (1760), Major (1824), Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas (1836), Jesse and Bohn (1856), Marston (1888), Harting (1893), Lang (1896). There is a facsimile reprint of the first edition by Elliot Stocic (1876). repub lished in 1877, 1880 and 1896. Lowell wrote
the introduction for an American edition in 1889. Walton also wrote ahnost equally famous biographies of John Donne (1640), Sir Henry Wotton (1651, in (Reliquise Wottonianm9, Richard Hooker (1665), George Herbert (1670), and Robert Sanderson (1678). The first four were published together in 1670, and have been often reissued, as for instance. under the editorship ot A. H. Bullen (1884) and Austin Dobson (1898). Besides the short pieces of poetry in his works, Walton wrote other occasional, and prefatory verses, which are to be found in R. H. Shepherd's (Wal toniana) (1878). The charm of (The Coin pleat Angler' is due to its purity and simplicity of style, the ease and unaffected humor of the dialogue, and its exquisite pictures of natural scenery, combined with the picture that it presents us of the writer's own sunny and benevolent nature. One Richard Franck, a Conunonwealth soldier, displayed his contempt of a royalist angler's practical acquirements in his (Northern Memoir' (1694). Consult farther the lives by Zouch (prefixed to the (Lives' in 1796; separately printed 1823) ; Nicolas (prefixed to the edition of the 'Coal pleat Angler' 1836), the basis of later works; Marston (1888) ; also Tweddell, (Izaak Walton and the Earlier English Writers of Angling) (1854), and Blakey, (Literature of Angling' (1856).