With the 19th century angling literature becomes too big a subject to be treated in detail, and it is only possible to glance at a few of the more important books and writers.  Daniel’s Rural Sports appeared in 1801; it is a treasure-house of odd facts.  In 1828 Sir Humphry Davy published his famous Salmonia, which was reviewed in the Quarterly by Sir Walter Scott.  At about this time too were appearing the Noctes Ambrosianae in Blackwood’s Magazine.  Christopher North (Professor Wilson) often touched upon angling in them, besides contributing a good many angling articles to the magazine.  In 1835 that excellent angling writer Thomas Tod Stoddart began his valuable series of books with The Art of Angling as Practised in Scotland.  In 1839 he published Songs and Poems, among which are pieces of great merit.  During this period, too, first appeared, year by year, the Newcastle Fishers’ Garlands, collected by Joseph Crawhall afterwards and republished in 1864.  These border verses, like Stoddart’s, have often a genuine ring about them which is missing from the more polished effusions of Gay and Thomson.  Alfred Ronalds’s The Fly-Fisher’s Entomology (1st ed., 1836) was a publication of great importance, for it marked the beginning of the scientific spirit among trout-fishers.  It ran through many editions and is still a valuable book of reference.  A step in angling history is also marked by George Pulman’s Vade-Mecum of Fly-fishing for Trout (1841), for it contains the first definite instructions on fishing with a “dry fly.”  Another is marked by Hewett Wheatley’s The Rod and the Line (1849), where is to be found the earliest reference to the “eyed” hook.  Yet another is marked by W.C.  Stewart’s The Practical Angler (1857), in which is taught the new doctrine of “up-stream” fishing for trout.  This is a book of permanent value.  Among the many books of this period Charles Kingsley’s Miscellanies (1859) stands out, for it contains the immortal “Chalk-Stream Studies.”  The work of Francis Francis begins at about the same time, though his A Book on Angling, which is still one of the most valuable text-books, was not first published till 1867.  Another well-known and excellent writer, Mr. H. Cholmondeley Pennell, began in the early ’sixties; it is to him that we owe the admirable volumes on fresh-water fishing in the “Badminton Library.”  Among other English writers mention must be made of Messrs William Senior, John Bickerdyke and F.M.  Halford, who have all performed signal services for angling and its literature. (See further bibliography ad fin.) In America the latter half of the 19th century produced a good deal of fishing literature, much of it of a high standard.

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