Editing Izaak Walton

{{short description|17th-century English author and biographer}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2024}}
{{Use British English|date=April 2012}}
{{Infobox author
| name               = Izaak Walton
| image              = Izaak Walton.jpg
| caption            = Portrait by [[Jacob Huysmans]], {{circa|1672}}
| birth_name         = Izaak Walton
| birth_date         = {{circa|1593}}
| birth_place        = [[Stafford]], England
| death_date         = 15 December {{bracket|[[Old Style and New Style dates|NS]]: 25 December}} 1683
| death_place        = [[Winchester]], England
| death_cause        = 
| education          = 
| occupation         = 
| notable_works      = ''[[The Compleat Angler]]'' (1653)
| spouse             = {{unbulleted list | {{marriage|Rachel Floud|December 1626|1640|end=died}} | Anne Ken ({{married-in|1641?–1662}})}}
| parents            = 
| children           = 
| relatives          = 
}}
[[File:Izaakwaltonshouse.jpg|thumb|upright|Walton's house at '120 [[Chancery Lane]]' occupied 1627–1644 (from ''Old & New London'', Walter Thornbury, 1872)]]
'''Izaak Walton''' (baptised 21 September 1593 – 15 December 1683) was an English writer. Best known as the author of ''[[The Compleat Angler]]'' (1653), he also wrote a number of short biographies including one of his friend [[John Donne]]. They have been collected under the title of ''Walton's Lives''.

Born at [[Stafford]] around 1593, Walton moved to [[London]] in his teens, where he worked as a linen draper. In the capital, he befriended the poet and clergyman John Donne. A [[Cavalier|Royalist]] during the [[English Civil War]], Walton returned to his home county of [[Staffordshire]], settling at [[Chebsey|Shallowford]], following the Royalist defeat at [[Battle of Marston Moor|Marston Moor]] in 1644. Though Walton had returned to London by 1650, his experiences at Shallowford provided material for ''The Compleat Angler'': a celebration of the art and spirit of fishing, first published in 1653. Throughout his life, Walton published biographies of subjects including Donne and [[Henry Wotton]]. These were later collected as Walton's ''Lives''.

Walton's literary admirers have included [[Charles Lamb]] and he gives his name to places and organisations in his native country, the [[United States]], and [[Kenya]]. Walton left [[Izaak Walton's Cottage|his residence at Shallowford]] to the local poor. It is now maintained as a museum to his legacy.

==Biography==
Walton was born at [[Stafford]] in {{circa}} 1593. The register of his [[baptism]] on 21 September 1593 gives his father's name as ''Jervis'', or Gervase. His father, who was an [[inn]]keeper as well as a landlord of a [[tavern]], died before Izaak was three, being buried in February 1596/7{{efn|See [[dual dating]].}} as ''Jarvicus Walton''. His mother then married another innkeeper by the name of Bourne, who later ran the Swan in Stafford.<ref name=EB/> Izaak also had a brother named Ambrose, as indicated by an entry in the [[parish register]] recording the burial in March 1595/6 of an ''Ambrosius filius Jervis Walton''.

His date of birth is traditionally given as 9 August 1593. However, this date is based on a misinterpretation of his will, which he began on 9 August 1683.<ref name=StMarys>{{cite web | url=http://www.stmarysstafford.org.uk/Izaak%20Walton/Izaak_Walton.htm | title=Izaak Walton: The Compleat Anglican | publisher=The Collegiate Church of St Mary, Stafford | access-date=24 June 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140530105444/http://stmarysstafford.org.uk/Izaak%20Walton/Izaak_Walton.htm |archive-date=30 May 2014}}</ref>

He is believed to have been educated in Stafford before moving to [[London]] in his teens. He is often described as an [[ironmonger]], but he trained as a linen draper, a trade which came under the [[Ironmongers' Company]].<ref>Jessica Martin, 'Walton, Izaak (1593–1683)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2013 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28653, accessed 1 Jan 2017]</ref> He had a small shop in the upper storey of [[Thomas Gresham]]'s [[Royal Exchange (London)|Royal Burse or Exchange]] in [[Cornhill, London|Cornhill]]. In 1614 he had a shop in [[Fleet Street]], two doors west of [[Chancery Lane]] in the [[parish]] of [[St Dunstan-in-the-West|St Dunstan's]].<ref>Reynolds, H. ''The Churches of the City of London''. Bodley Head, 1922</ref> He became verger and churchwarden of the church, and a friend of the vicar, [[John Donne]].<ref name=StMarys/> He joined the Ironmongers' Company in November 1618.<ref name=StMarys/>
Walton's first wife was Rachel Floud (married December 1626), a great-great-niece of [[Thomas Cranmer|Archbishop Cranmer]]. She died in 1640. He soon remarried, to Anne Ken (m. 1641?-1662), who appears as the pastoral ''Kenna'' of ''The Angler's Wish''; she was a stepsister of [[Thomas Ken]], afterwards [[bishop of Bath and Wells]].<ref name=EB/>

After the [[Cavalier|Royalist]] defeat at [[battle of Marston Moor|Marston Moor]] in 1644, Walton retired from his trade. The last forty years of his life were spent visiting eminent clergymen and others who enjoyed [[fishing]], compiling the biographies of people he liked, and collecting information for the ''Compleat Angler''. 

He went to live just north of his birthplace, at a spot between the towns of Stafford and [[Stone, Staffordshire|Stone]], where he had bought some land edged by a small river. His new land at [[Shallowford, Staffordshire|Shallowford]] included a farm, and a parcel of land; however by 1650 he was living in [[Clerkenwell]], London.

He published the first of his several biographies of clergymen, a life of John Donne, in 1640. The first edition of his most famous book,''The Compleat Angler'', was published in 1653. It was expanded and republished in four additional editions.

Following the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 it was disclosed that Izaak was a staunch Royalist supporter who had aided the Royalists when, at great personal risk, he managed to safeguard one of the Crown Jewels, referred to as the Little George, following [[Charles II of England|Charles II]]'s defeat at the [[battle of Worcester]]. Walton was entrusted with returning it to London from where it was smuggled out of the country to Charles II who was then in exile.<ref>Poulton-Smith, A. ''Bloody British History''. History Press, 2013</ref>

His second wife died in 1662, and was buried in [[Worcester Cathedral]], where there is a monument to her memory. One of his daughters married Dr Hawkins, a [[prebendary]] of [[Winchester Cathedral|Winchester]].<ref name=EB/>

After 1662 he found a home at [[Farnham Castle]] with [[George Morley (bishop)|George Morley]], [[Bishop of Winchester]], to whom he dedicated his ''Life of George Herbert'' and his biography of [[Richard Hooker (theologian)|Richard Hooker]]. He sometimes visited [[Charles Cotton]] in his fishing house on the [[River Dove, Central England|River Dove]].<ref name=EB/>

Walton died, aged 90, in his daughter's house at Winchester on 15 December 1683 and was buried in [[Winchester Cathedral]].<ref name=EB/><ref>{{cite web | url=http://winchester-cathedral.org.uk/history-treasures/famous-people/izaak-walton-biographer-and-angler/ | title=Izaak Walton: Biographer and angler | publisher=Winchester Cathedral | access-date=24 June 2013 | archive-date=12 November 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231112214212/https://winchester-cathedral.org.uk/history-treasures/famous-people/izaak-walton-biographer-and-angler/ | url-status=dead }}</ref>

==Works==
===''The Compleat Angler''===
{{Main|The Compleat Angler}}
[[File:Louis John Rhead - Izaak Wolton and his scholar.jpg|thumb|upright|''Izaak Walton and his scholar''<br />woodcut by [[Louis Rhead]]]]
[[File:Viators Bridge, Milldale 206415 deb07465.jpg|thumb|right|Viator's bridge near [[Milldale (Peak District)]] is named for its reference in ''The Compleat Angler'']]

''The Compleat Angler''<ref>{{cite book|last1=Walton|first1=Izaak|last2=Cotton|first2=Charles|title=The Compleat Angler|date=1897|publisher=John Lane: The Bodley Head|location=London and New York|url=https://archive.org/details/compleatangler00gallgoog}}</ref> was first published in 1653, but Walton continued to add to it for a quarter of a century. It is a celebration of the art and spirit of fishing in prose and verse; 6 verses were quoted from [[John Dennys]]'s 1613 work ''[[The Secrets of Angling]]''. It was dedicated to John Offley, his most honoured friend. There was a second edition in 1655, a third in 1661 (identical with that of 1664), a fourth in 1668 and a fifth in 1676. In this last edition the thirteen chapters of the original had grown to twenty-one, and a second part was added by his friend and brother angler [[Charles Cotton]], who took up Venator where Walton had left him and completed his instruction in [[fly fishing]] and the making of [[Artificial fly|flies]].<ref name=EB>{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle= Walton, Izaak |volume= 28 | pages = 300&ndash;301}}</ref>

Walton did not profess to be an expert with a fishing fly; the fly fishing in his first edition was contributed by [[Thomas Barker (fishing guide)|Thomas Barker]], a retired cook and [[humorist]], who published a [[treatise]] of his own, ''The Art of Angling'' in 1651;<ref>Leslie Stephen (editor), ''Dictionary of National Biography 1885-1900'', publisher Smith-Elder & Co., Volume 3, p.210;article by Arthur Henry Bullen.</ref> but in the use of the live [[worm]], the [[grasshopper]] and the [[frog]] "Piscator" himself could speak as a master. The famous passage about the frog, often misquoted as being about the worm—"use him as though you loved him, that is, harm him as little as you may possibly, that he may live the longer"—appears in the original edition. The additions made as the work grew did not affect the technical part alone; quotations, new turns of phrase, songs, poems and anecdotes were introduced as if the author, who wrote it as a recreation, had kept it constantly in his mind and talked it over point by point with his many friends. There were originally only two interlocutors in the opening scene, "Piscator" and "Viator"; but in the second edition, as if in answer to an objection that "Piscator" had it too much in his own way in praise of angling, he introduced the [[falconry|falconer]], "Auceps," changed "Viator" into "Venator" and made the new companions each dilate on the joys of his favourite sport.<ref name=EB/>

The best-known old edition of the ''Angler'' is J. Major's (2nd ed., 1824). The book was edited by [[Andrew Lang]] in 1896, followed by many other editions.<ref name=EB/>

===Walton's ''Lives''===
Walton made significant contributions to seventeenth-century life-writing throughout his career. His leisurely labours as a biographer seem to have grown out of his devotion to angling. It was probably as an angler that he made the acquaintance of Sir [[Henry Wotton]], but it is clear that Walton had more than a love of fishing and a humorous temper to recommend him to Wotton's friendship. At any rate, Wotton, who had intended to write the life of John Donne, and had already corresponded with Walton on the subject, left the task to him. Walton had already contributed an [[elegy]] to the 1633 edition of Donne's poems, and he completed and published the life, much to the satisfaction of the most learned critics, in 1640. Sir Henry Wotton dying in 1639, Walton undertook his life also; it was finished in 1642 and published in 1651 as a preface to the volume ''Reliquiae Wottonianae''. His life of [[Richard Hooker|Hooker]] was published in 1665, and his biography of [[George Herbert]] in 1670, the latter coinciding with a collected edition of Walton's biographical writings, ''The Lives of Dr. John Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, Mr. Richard Hooker, Mr. George Herbert'' (1670, 1675). His life of Bishop [[Robert Sanderson (theologian)|Robert Sanderson]] appeared in 1678. All these subjects were endeared to Walton by a certain gentleness of disposition and cheerful piety; three of them at least—Donne, Wotton and Herbert—were anglers. Walton studied these men's lives in detail, and provides many insights into their character.<ref name=EB/>

===Other===
<!--Donne, Wotton, Hooker, Herbert and Sanderson are in the Lives -->
* ''[[Sir John Skeffington, 2nd Baronet|Sir John Skeffington]]''
* ''[[John Chalkhill]]''
* ''Waltoniana'' – an 1878 collection of Walton's poems and prose fragments

==Legacy==
===Izaak Walton's Cottage===
{{main|Izaak Walton's Cottage}}
[[File:Izaak Walton's House at Shallowford, Staffordshire, 1888.jpg|thumb|left|[[Photogravure]] of Walton's Shallowford house, 1888]]

In his will, Walton left [[Izaak Walton's Cottage|his property]] at [[Shallowford, Staffordshire|Shallowford]] in [[Staffordshire]] for the benefit of the poor of his native town. He had purchased Halfhead Farm there in May 1655. In doing this he was part of a more general retreat of Royalist gentlemen into the English countryside, in the aftermath of the [[English Civil War]], a move summed up by his friend Charles Cotton's well-known poem "The Retirement" (first published in the 5th edition of Walton's ''Compleat Angler''). The cost of Shallowford was £350, and the property included a farmhouse, a cottage, courtyard, garden and nine fields along which a river ran. Part of its attraction may have been that the River Meece, which he mentions in one of his poems, formed part of the boundary. The farm was let to tenants, and Walton kept the excellent fishing.<ref name=EB/>

The cottage is now a Walton Museum. The ground floor of the museum is set-out in period, with information boards covering Walton's life, his writings and the story of the Izaak Walton Cottage. Upstairs a collection of fishing related items is displayed, the earliest dating from the mid-eighteenth century, while a room is dedicated to his ''Lives'' and ''The Compleat Angler''.  The Izaak Walton Cottage and gardens are open to the public on Sunday afternoons during the summer.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.staffordbc.gov.uk/izaak-waltons-cottage | title=Izaak Walton's Cottage | publisher=Stafford Borough Council | access-date=24 June 2013}}</ref>
===Commemorations===
Advertising mogul and land developer [[Barron Collier]] founded the Izaak Walton Fly Fishing Club in 1908 at his [[Useppa Island]] resort near [[Fort Myers, Florida]]. The [[Izaak Walton League]] is an American association formed in 1922 in [[Chicago, Illinois]], to preserve fishing streams. Walton has been inducted into the American [[National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame]].<ref name="HallOfFameMuseums">{{cite book |last=Danilov |first=Victor J. |title=Hall of fame museums |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |year=1997 |page=[https://archive.org/details/halloffamemuseum00dani/page/113 113] |isbn=0-313-30000-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/halloffamemuseum00dani|url-access=registration |quote=National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame. }}</ref> There is a forest preserve in Homewood, Illinois, called the Izaak Walton Forest Preserve. The Izaak Walton Hotel in the Staffordshire village of [[Ilam, Staffordshire|Ilam]] overlooks the River Dove, at the entrance to [[Dovedale]]. There are also two pubs in England named The Izaak Walton: one in the village of [[East Meon]], Hampshire,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.izaakwalton.biz/|title=Izaak Walton Public House|website=izaakwalton.biz|access-date=9 June 2015}}</ref> the other in [[Cresswell, Staffordshire|Cresswell]], [[Staffordshire]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.izaakwaltoncresswell.com/|title=The Izaak Walton|website=izaakwaltoncresswell.com|access-date=9 June 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150801151105/http://izaakwaltoncresswell.com/|archive-date=1 August 2015}}</ref> In the county town of [[Stafford]], there is now a statue of him placed in the town park, by the bank of the river. This route through the park was originally known as 'Izaak Walton Walk', there is also a street in the north part of Stafford named after him.

There is a creek named after him in [[Owatonna, Minnesota]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Izaak Walton Creek · Owatonna, MN 55060 |url=https://www.google.com/maps/place/Izaak+Walton+Creek/@44.0825393,-93.2018216,17.25z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x87f6e719a4c42c63:0x2de2c1226f4ae137!8m2!3d44.0818032!4d-93.201555 |access-date=25 March 2022 |website=Izaak Walton Creek · Owatonna, MN 55060 |language=en}}</ref> There is also a pub in [[Norwich]] named 'The Compleat Angler'. The Compleat Angler Hotel in [[Bimini]], [[Bahamas]], was destroyed by fire in 2006; the hotel bar was frequented by [[Ernest Hemingway]]. The Allen-Edmonds shoe company of [[Port Washington, Wisconsin]], produces a "Walton" style in tribute. In the Silver Divide region of the [[Sierra Nevada (U.S.)|Sierra Nevada]] mountain range of California, [[Mount Izaak Walton]] is named after Izaak Walton. The Izaak Walton State Recreation Site in [[Sterling, Alaska]], is located at the confluence of the Moose River and the [[Kenai River]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.alaska.org/detail/izaak-walton-state-recreation-site|title=Izaak Walton State Recreation Site|website=ALASKA.ORG}}</ref> and his name is lent to the  [[Izaak Walton Inn]] in Montana. There is an Izaak Walton Inn in [[Embu, Kenya]], overlooking a small stream that feeds into the Rupingazi River.<ref>{{cite web |title=Welcome to Izaak Walton Inn |url=https://www.izaakwaltoninn.co.ke/ |website=Izaak Walton Inn |access-date=13 December 2022}}</ref>
===Non-fiction===
* [[Charles Lamb]], in his [[Letters of Charles Lamb|letter]] to [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]], recommends the ''Compleat Angler'': "It breathes the very spirit of innocence, purity, and simplicity of the heart. There are many choice old verses interspersed in it; it would sweeten a man's temper at any time to read it; it would Christianise every discordant angry passion; pray make yourself acquainted with it."<ref>Lamb, Charles. ''Letter to Samuel Taylor Coleridge.''</ref>
<!--* [[Washington Irving]]'s humorous essay ''The Angler'' comments on Walton's popularity; the work is in ''[[The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.]]''.{{cn|date=April 2015}}-->
* [[Gilbert Ryle]] uses him in his 1949 book ''[[The Concept of Mind]]'' as an example of "'knowing how' before 'knowing that'"; in his collected essays he writes that "We certainly can, in respect of many practices, like fishing, cooking and reasoning, extract principles from their applications by people who know how to fish, cook and reason. Hence Isaak Walton, Mrs Beeton and Aristotle. But when we try to express these principles we find that they cannot easily be put in the [[indicative mood]]. They fall automatically into the [[imperative mood]]."<ref name="Ryle2009">{{cite book |last=Ryle |first=Gilbert|title=Collected Essays 1929–1968: Collected Papers |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YQd5AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA231|date=16 June 2009 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-01208-4 |page=231}}</ref>
<!--citations are REQUIRED for items here; trivia is not allowed; entries must be supported by exact page numbers and quotations-
 [[Henry David Thoreau]], subtly mentions him in his 1849 book, [[A week on the Concord and Merrimack rivers]],in the Chapter, Saturday. Not far into this chapter while floating down the Concord river, just north of the Old North bridge, he and his brother pass a fisherman on the shore, which begins a 5-page treatise on Fishing and species of fishes. In the treatise he mentions a man from his youth whom he saw frequently fishing on the shore of the Concord, and refereed to him as " and old brown coated man who was the Walton of this stream". -->

===Fiction===
* [[Charles Dickens]] makes reference to him in chapter 14 of book 2 of ''[[A Tale of Two Cities]]''. "The honoured parent steering Northward, had not gone far, when he was joined by another disciple of Izaak Walton, and the two trudged on together."<ref>{{Cite web|title=A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/98/98-h/98-h.htm|access-date=16 December 2020|website=www.gutenberg.org}}</ref>
* Walton is mentioned by [[Thomas Hardy]] in his 1891 ''[[A Group of Noble Dames]]'', where his relation to fish is compared to the relation of the Petrick family towards the aristocracy.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3049/3049-h/3049-h.htm|title=A Group of Noble Dames|website=www.gutenberg.org}}</ref>
* [[Zane Grey]] mentions him in a fishing passage in his 1903 book ''[[Betty Zane]]'' on page 84. "Alfred Clark said 'I never knew one (girl) who cared for fishing.'" "Betty Zane answered 'Now you behold one. I love dear old Izaak Walton. Of course you (Clark) have read his book?'"<ref name="Grey1903">{{cite book|last=Grey|first=Zane|title=Betty Zane|url=https://archive.org/details/bettyzane00greygoog|publisher=New York: Grosset & Dunlop|date=1903|page=[https://archive.org/details/bettyzane00greygoog/page/n92 84]}}</ref>
* [[Richard Brautigan]] describes Communists carrying "propaganda posters" in a "trout fishing in America peace parade" with slogans including "ISAAC WALTON [sic] WOULD'VE HATED THE BOMB!" in his 1967 book ''[[Trout Fishing in America]].''
* [[Donna Tartt]] references him in ''[[The Secret History]]'' when the character Bunny writes an essay which over-emphasises his friendship with [[John Donne]].
*[[Jules Verne]] references him in ''[[The Mysterious Island]]'' when the author refers to making fishing lines in the fashion of Izaak Walton.
*[[David James Duncan]] employs Walton's ''[[The Compleat Angler]]'' to comedic effect throughout the early chapters of his novel of fishing and spiritual development, ''[[The River Why]]'' (1983).
*In the film ''[[School Ties]]'' (1992) the history teacher refers to Izaak Walton as a personal favourite after mentioning the date of his birth to see if any students knew it.
*A ghostly Walton appears in "Over the Edge" by Peter Wise in ''Disturbing the Water'', a collection of themed original ghost stories set around rivers and lakes.<ref> Wise, Peter (2024). Wafting Lines Press {{ISBN|978-1-0687155-1-8}}</ref>

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

===Sources===
* {{Cite EB1911|wstitle= Walton, Izaak |volume= 28 | pages = 300&ndash;301 |short= 1}}
* {{cite book |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/28/101028653/ |last=Martin |first=Jessica |title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |contribution=Walton, Izaak (1593–1683), author and biographer |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2004}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book | author=Bottrall, Margaret | title=Izaak Walton | url=https://archive.org/details/izaakwalton0000bott | url-access=registration | publisher=Longmans, Green | year=1955}}
* {{cite book | author=Bussby, Frederick | title=Izaak Walton | publisher=Friends of Winchester Cathedral | year=1966}}
* {{cite book | author=Chadwick, Owen | title=The Fisherman and his God: Izaak Walton | publisher= Canine Press | year=1984}}
* {{cite book | author=Martin, Stapleton | title=Izaak Walton and his Friends | url=https://archive.org/details/izaakwaltonandh00martgoog | publisher=Chapman and Hall | year=1903}}
* {{cite book | title=Izaak Walton: the compleat angler and his turbulent times | publisher=Stinehour Press |author1=Pool, J. Lawrence |author2=Pool, Angeline J. | year=1976}}
* {{cite book | author=Stanwood, P. G. | title=Izaak Walton | publisher=Prentice Hall | year=1998}}

==External links==
{{Wikisource author}}
{{Wikiquote}}
{{Commons category}}
{{DNB Poster|Walton, Izaak}}
* [http://www.staffordbc.gov.uk/izaak-waltons-cottage Izaak Walton's Cottage] (official [[Stafford Borough Council]] page)
* [http://www.iwla.org/ The Official Izaak Walton League of America Website]
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/stoke/content/articles/2006/04/03/local_heroes_izaak_walton_feature.shtml BBC Local Heroes: Stoke & Staffordshire: Izaak Walton]
* {{Gutenberg author |id=350| name=Izaak Walton}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Izaak Walton}}
* {{Librivox author |id=3177}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Walton, Izaak}}
[[Category:1593 births]]
[[Category:1683 deaths]]
[[Category:17th-century English male writers]]
[[Category:Angling writers]]
[[Category:British fishers]]
[[Category:Burials at Winchester Cathedral]]
[[Category:English biographers]]
[[Category:English male biographers]]
[[Category:People from Stafford]]