Treatyse of fysshynge with an Angle.
[Chelsea: Ashendene Press, 1903]. One of 150 copies on paper, 125 of which were for sale, printed by Hornby at the Ashendene Press with type set by Hornby and Meysey Turton. 25 morocco-bound copies on vellum, 20 of which were for sale, were also printed. With a woodcut of an angler on page two and text woodcuts on six pages, all copied from the original Treatyse, which was printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1496. Also with Subiaco type initials, the first in red, and the Ashendene Press device on the final page. Twentieth century bookplate on front pastedown of art collector C.F.J. Beausire. A fine, clean copy with the second half of an ALS from Ashendene Press founder Charles St. John Hornby, on his personal stationery headed with the address of his house Chantmarle in Dorset, laid in. Full limp vellum with gilt lettered spine. Octavo. 48 pp. Item #16770
In the ALS included with the present book, Hornby discusses his choice of Subiaco type initials. He writes: “I am glad you like the Subiaco type. I think it has a wonderful nobility, and it is besides very good to read.”.
Colin Franklin, in The Ashendene Press (1986), calls the present work a “small and happy book” with cuts that were recreated so carefully and accurately that engraver Charles Keates reproduced a crack in one of the original woodblocks.
The Boke of Saint Albans, which is often credited in whole or in part to Juliana Berners, was printed by de Worde in 1496. It was the first book on fishing printed English. Berners’ authorship of the Boke has not been entirely verified, but her other writing on fishing, hunting, and hawking is some of the first of its kind. Ashendene Bibliography, item XVI, p. 50.
Price: $3,500.00