Selected Writings

Walton Izaak

Izaak Walton (1593-1683) is best known for his graceful, lucid if not always practical book "The Compleat Angler". It has stayed in print since it first appeared in 1653.

More than just a writer of devout pastoral, Walton is one of the fathers of modern literary biography. This selection includes his lively portraits of Donne, Herbert and others, and reminiscences of Jonson written in old age. A devoted churchman, in his writing Walton helps define what it was to be Anglican at a time when the Church was in upheaval. One historian said Walton "invented Anglicanism". He certainly shaped it in ways which are potent today.

Walton is here set in a context which complicates and then corrects the reductive view of him, encapsulated by Gosse, as "that immortal piscatory linen-draper".

About the Author

Walton was born at Stafford. His father, an innkeeper, died when Izaak was very young. His mother then married another innkeeper.

He settled in London where he began trading as an ironmonger. In 1614 he had a shop in Fleet Street, and around this time he became friendly with Dr John Donne, then vicar of the parish church.

Walton's first wife was Rachel Floud (married December 1626), a great-great-niece of Archbishop Cranmer. She died in 1640. Not long after this, he married Anne Ken (Kenna of The Angler's Wish) stepsister of Thomas Ken, afterwards bishop of Bath and Wells.

As a Royalist, Walton felt unsafe under Cromwell's rule and left London for Stafford, where he had bought some land; but by 1650 he was again living in Clerkenwell. The first edition of The Compleat Angler was published in 1653. Anne died in 1662, and was buried in Worcester Cathedral. Walton then moved to Winchester, where he died December 15,1683. He was buried in the Cathedral.

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