The Angler in Ireland… by William Bilton – £700 at Rowley’s.
In what looks to be a later green, quarter morocco and green cloth binding, it is in fact the work of William Bilton and the selling price may well have been a record one – the previous best being €850 for a copy sold in 2005 at by the Irish auction house Mealy’s of Castlecomer.
Bilton (or Belton) was an Englishman who came to Ireland in the summer of 1833 to explore the countryside and to indulge in his passion for fishing.
A great deal more about this keen angler, who also wrote about one of his other angling expeditions in Two Summers in Norway of 1840, can be found at the website clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/strangers_gaze/strangers_bilton.htm (where extensive passages from The Angler in Ireland are also available).
