Bibliography of fly fishing

Numbering more than 2,500 titles and dating back to the origin of the genre in seventeenth-century England, the materials support the study of not only the development of this sport, but also its relationship to nature writing, art, ecology, conservation, and even the history of printing and publishing.

The Milne Collection contains several editions of Berners' work dating from the 1827 William Pickering edition to modern versions, such as the one published in John McDonald's Quill Gordon (1972).Since our beginnings in the late Nineteenth Century, the MSU Libraries has striven to develop a world–class research collection in support of the academic goals of our university, including those of local interest with national and international resonance.

Westwood and Sachell, in their milestone Bibliotheca Piscatoria (1883), give the following opinions of Historical Sketches: "A slip-shod and negligent work, devoid of all real utility.

A mere farrago of matter relevant and irrelevant, of indiscriminate sweepings from miscellaneous sources, of quotations incorrectly given and of so-called original passages the vaqueness and uncertainty of which rob them of all weight and value.

Names and dates are seldom given, or are inaccurately...." They go on to catalog a few of the grosser errors and conclude that the book's only value is in its excellent bibliography, which, as we will see, also has its problems.Arnold Gingrich, founding editor of Esquire magazine, is a tremendous part of the literary history of fly fishing.