The Ristigouche and Its Salmon Fishing. With a Chapter on Angling Literature by Sage, Dean - 1888

Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1888. First edition, 1/105 copies initialed by the publisher. Folio. xvi, 275 pp. Aquatint title-page partly printed in red after G. Reid by Annan and Swan, aquatint frontispiece after Reid by Annan and Swan, 16 etched plates after and by Stephen Parrish, Mrs. A.L. Merritt, C.A. Platt, H. Sandham, and others on Japan paper, 63 etched, engraved, and wood-engraved headpieces, tailpieces, historiated initials, vignettes, and other ornaments after and by Merritt, Platt, J. Adam and others, double-page lithographed map
after and by J. Bartholomew on Japan paper; six illustrated pages of publisher's ads at the rear. With Dean Sage's book plate and calling card mounted on the justification page. Bruns S-4. Wetzel, p. 206. Hampton (1947), p. 81. Phillips, p. 328: "A sumptuous volume on angling, delightfully written by one of the foremost authorities on the subject. Included in a hunting library because of an appreciative discussion of the feelings and moods of the sportsman enjoying both hunting and fishing, pp. 138-141." Gee Sportsman's Library, p. 100: "One of the great books on salmon fishing." Litchfield, p. 58. Sage catalogue, p. 175. Heckscher sale 1681 ("manuscript note in this copy: 'The flies in this book are colored by hand by Wakeman Holberton'"). Sherwin sale 428. Hinges neatly repaired, but a very good copy. Housed in a custom green quarter-morocco and cloth clamshell box. Original olive green cloth (rubbed), decorated with a gilt-stamped salmon and osprey design on the upper cover, decorated endpapers. (#5174). A book of almost legendary beauty, rarity, and importance, recounting the author's adventures at Camp Harmony on the Ristigouche River in New Brunswick, Canada, and
drawing on his long experience fishing the river. Dean Sage's contributions to angling literature are few in number, but profoundly influential: "Ten Days' Sport on Salmon Rivers," published in the "Atlantic" in 1875, is a classic account. His library catalogue (2 volumes, 1896 and 1904) remains an important document in the history of angling bibliography and collecting. Sage's section on "The Atlantic Salmon," in "Salmon and Trout" (1902), is a synthesis of his own first hand knowledge as a fisherman and his assessment of the extensive literature. "The Ristigouche and Its Salmon Fishing" remains the work for which Sage is best known. The cornerstone for any salmon
fishing collection and one of the great 19th-century angling books, beautifully designed.