THE FISHING DIARY 1809 - 1819 OF THE REV. RICHARD DURNFORD, OF CHILBOLTON, HAMPSHIRE. [Edited by Richard Nicholl].

1911 1st edition. 8vo (150 x 230mm). Ppxii,112. Illustrated with a portrait frontispiece (half-tone, after a charcoal drawing), two colour plates (although they appear sepia): one a facsimile of a page from the diaries, and one of casts of flies, and a b/w photograph of Chilbolton Rectory. Re-issue (Binding B - c.1927) in grey-green cloth, spine and upper board titled in black "The Diary of a Test Fisherman 1809 to 1819".

Edited, and with a seven-page Introduction, by Henry Nicoll of Bullington Manor, Hants. A transcription from the three volumes of diaries left by this South Country vicar". The great interest in this unique diary is, of course, the opportunity it gives of comparing Test trout fishing of 100 years ago with that of the present day. Much has not changed at all, many a day picked out of the diary might represent a day's fishing in the same waters last year". (From Henry Nicholl's Introduction). Nicholl makes the point (as did Durnford) that, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was not possible to tie a fly small enough to accurately represent the smaller species of fly. The plate of flies is a facsimile of actual specimen flies from the diary, "there are none smaller than those illustrated".