The Compleat Angler

The Compleat Angler is a celebration of the art and spirit of fishing in prose and verse. Walton did not profess to be an expert with the fly, but in the use of the live worm, the grasshopper and the frog "Piscator" could speak as a master.

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 falconer, "Auceps," changed "Viator" into "Venator" and made the new companions each dilate on the joys of his favourite sport.