Alfred RONALDS
THE FLY-FISHER'S ENTOMOLOGY with coloured representations of the natural and artificial insect, and a few observations and instructions on trout and grayling fishing by Alfred Ronalds. With twenty coloured plates. Ninth edition.
London, Longmans, Green and Co., 1883
1 volume in-8 (23 x 15) de XII-132 pages + 24 p. de catalogue de l'éditeur (janvier 1886). 20 superbes planches mises en couleur à l'aquarelle et gommées à l'époque.
Cartonnage de l'éditeur pleine toile verte gaufrée à froid, titre doré au centre du premier plat, relié sur brochure, doublures et gardes de papier noir. Très bon état. Quelques fissures de la toile sans gravité aux mors et coiffes légèrement frottée, coins légèrement touchés, intérieur frais, avec parfois quelques rousseurs. Quelques annotations et marques à l'encre.
NEUVIÈME ÉDITION.
Très beau livre de référence pour la présentation et l'étude des mouches pour la pêche. L'auteur après une intéressante préface donne la nomenclature des principales mouches utilisées pour la pêche de la truite et de l'ombre en sèche. 47 insectes décrits et reproduits au naturel et en montage artificiel (sur une même planche). Ce livre peut être, encore de nos jours, pris comme un indispensable guide pour le montage de mouches réalistes. On y retrouve les classiques red fly, blue dun, red spinner, march brown, peacock fly, cow-dung fly, golden dun midge, stone fly, yellow dun, iron blue dun, etc.
Cet ouvrage a été publié pour la première fois en 1836. Il a été de nombreuses fois réédité depuis (11 éditions entre 1836 et 1913). Outre les planches d'insectes naturels/mouches artificielles, on trouve dans ce volume une planche aquarellée représentant un cours d'eau avec les différents spots probables. La planche II représente une coupe (vision de la truite / position du pêcheur). La planche III explique en plusieurs figures le montage d'une mouche artificielle.
"This work . displays a rare combination of entomological and piscatorial science. The drawings of the natural fly in juxtaposition with the artificial, are of great value and nicety" (Westwood & Satchell).
Alfred Ronalds was the first of the great angler-naturalists. His book revolutionised flyfishing and flytying, and formed the cornerstone on which all later books on angling entomology were based.
Alfred Ronalds was born in Highbury, London in 1802, the 11th of 12 children. His father was a successful merchant and his eldest brother, Sir Francis Ronalds, became famous for pioneering the electric telegraph. In 1817 at the age of 15, Ronalds took an apprenticeship as an engraver, lithographer and copper-plate printer. In 1830 he moved to Tixall, Staffordshire. He married his first wife, Margaret Bond, a local girl, in 1831. In Staffordshire, Ronalds took up the sport of fly fishing, learning the craft on the rivers Trent, Blythe and Dove. On the River Blythe, near what is today Creswell Green, Ronalds constructed a bankside fishing hut designed primarily as an observatory of trout behaviour in the river. From this hut, and elsewhere on his home rivers, Ronalds conducted experiments and formulated the ideas that eventually were published in The Fly-fisher's Entomology. He combined his knowledge of fly fishing with his skill as an engraver and printer, to lavish his work with 20 colour plates. In 1844, Ronalds moved his family to Dolgelly North Wales and in 1846 he moved to Brecon in South Wales, then to Cwmback, Llanalwedd, to become a full-time tackle maker and fly tier. In 1847, his first wife Margaret died during childbirth. In 1848 with six of his children, Ronalds moved to Melbourne, Australia and set up an engraving business. The gold rushes of the 1850 eventually found Ronalds settled in Ballarat, where he died suddenly of a stroke in 1860. He never returned to England. (The Fly-fisher's Entomology, in Wikipédia)
"It's impossible to overstress the importance of Ronalds. Certainly he is the most significant figure in fly fishing after Cotton whom he followed by a hundred and sixty years. And while The Complete Angler was of course unique in it impact on the literary world, and will undoubtably alway remain so, it is safe to say that no single book ever had the revolutionary effect on the angling world--that is, the actual practice of angling, as opposed to the recording of it annals--of The Fly-fisher's Entomology in 1836." Arnold Gingrich, in his The Fishing in Print (1974)
Reference : Westwood & Satchell, p. 178
BEL EXEMPLAIRE DE CE SUPERBE LIVRE.
Prix : 800 euros
