Arthur Ransome on Fishing

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First Publication

Published by Jonathan Cape in November, 1994.

Availability

Out of print.

Background

Ransome wrote over 200 articles for the Manchester Guardian’s angling column in the 1920s, fifty of which were published in Rod and Line (1927). He also wrote a number of other fishing essays and part of a draft of his unfinished novel, The River Comes First.

In 1994 Cape republished a number of the Manchester Guardian articles, plus other examples of Arthur Ransome’s fishing writing, in Arthur Ransome on Fishing. The selection was compiled by Jeremy Swift, who also provided a long biographical essay about Ransome’s life.

The Flyfisher’s Classic Library published limited editions of both Arthur Ransome on Fishing and Mainly About Fishing (also with an introduction by Jeremy Swift) in 1994.

Synopsis

Arthur Ransome on Fishing contains 57 fishing essays, a chapter The World’s Whopper from The Big Six, and a previously unpublished fragment from The River Comes First (the bulk of which was published in Coots in the North, in 1988).