A SUMMER ON THE TEST. By John Waller Hills. With photographs by John Tarlton.

(1924) 1972 5th edition. 8vo (148 x 222mm). Pp200. B/w photographs by John Tarlton. Dark blue boards, spine titled in gilt.

In this classic of chalk-stream fishing, Hills describes the River Test in its heyday. First published in 1924 it remained in print for more than thirty years, and with good reason. No author has surpassed this description of classic chalkstream fishing, and very few authors knew half as much about the history of their sport as J.W. Hills. Summer on the Test makes rather painful reading in some respects. Of all the rivers which have been subject to decline and deterioration, the Test must rank near the top. In the 1920s, the river ran crystal clear through the buttercup meadows and brown trout were there in profusion. Now, those days seem impossible to recover. This book enables us to make an estimate of what it was once like, and what we have lost. This 1972 edition is newly illustrated with full-page photographs (by John Tarlton - new photographs and different to the previous edition), and includes the four-page Introduction by Sir Joseph Ball, K.B.E.