Walton, Izaak 1593-1683
English writer

He was born in Stafford, the son of an alehouse-keeper. In 1621 he settled as an ironmonger in London, where he became friends with John Donne. In 1626 he married a great-grandniece of Thomas Cranmer, and in 1647 Ann Ken, a half-sister of the hymn writer Thomas Ken. He spent most of his time 'in the families of the eminent clergymen of England'. His later years were spent in Winchester. His most celebrated work is his The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative Man's Recreation, which first appeared in 1653. His description of fishes, English rivers, and of rods and lines is interspersed with scraps of dialogue, moral reflections, old verses, songs and sayings, and idyllic glimpses of country life. The anonymous Arte of Angling (1577), discovered in 1957, has been found to be one of his chief sources. Equally exquisite are his biographies - of John Donne (1640), Sir Thomas Wotton (1651), Richard Hooker (1665), Richard Herbert (1670) and George Sanderson (1678).

Bibliography: J Bevan, Izaak Walton (1987)