Franck, Richard
Northern Memoirs, calculated for the Meridian of Scotland
£2,772
Auction: 19 September 2024 from 10:00 BST
Description
wherein most or all of the Cities, Citadels, Sea Ports, Castles, Forts, Fortresses, Rivers and Rivulets are compendiously described … To which is added, the Contemplative and Practical Angler, by way of Diversion. With a Narrative of that Dextrous and Mysterious Art Experimented in England, and perfected in more Remote and Solitary Parts of Scotland. By way of Dialogue. Writ in the Year 1658, but not till now made Publick. London: for the author. To be sold by Henry Mortclock, 1694. First edition, 8vo (16.8 x 11cm), xxxix 304 pp., 19th-century green crushed morocco by Francis Bedford, spine richly gilt in compartments, French fillet border gilt to covers, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt [Westwood & Satchell pp. 100-101]
Provenance
The Library of a Scottish Gentleman
Footnote
A rare and noted oddity of 17th-century travel writing and angling literature, containing the first description of salmon-fishing in Scotland, a ‘pioneering account of fly-fishing for trout’ (ODNB), and a now notorious passage relating the author's confrontation with Izaak Walton at Stafford over Walton's assertion in The Compleat Angler of the parthenogenesis of pike from pickerel weed. Richard Franck (c.1624-1708) has been plausibly identified as a parliamentarian cavalry officer who was stationed in Scotland with Thornhaugh's Nottinghamshire regiment during the 1650s. 'Northern Memoirs is a most unusual narrative, marked by Franck's eclectic interests and given ripe flavour by his often highly colourful judgements. In the first instance it is possible to take this simply as a generally appreciative assessment of the people, landscape, and heritage of Scotland not inconsistent with the growing body of travel literature on that country over the next 100 years which would culminate in the acute observations of Thomas Pennant and Samuel Johnson … Franck is also, somewhat incongruously, an enthusiastic angler. Observations on local aquatic life and recondite disputes about fishing techniques intrude so frequently as to unbalance the narrative, creating a sense that Franck, with probably a very limited formal education, possessed little or no intellectual discipline' (ibid.)