Fishers' Craft and Lettered Art provides editions, English translations, and analysis from social, cultural, and environmental perspectives of the three oldest European extended tracts on fishing. Richard Hoffmann discusses the history of fishing in popular culture and outlines the economic and ecologic considerations needed to examine and understand the fishing manuals. Hoffmann further explores how continental fishing traditions were conveyed from oral craft practice into printed culture, and proposes that these manuals demonstrate a lively and complex interaction between written texts and popular culture. The tracts are presented in their original languages - Spanish and German - with facing page translations. Close attention is paid to original setting, functions, and possible range of readings, with detailed explanatory notes to help modern fishers and historians.

Fishers' Craft and Lettered Art is a fascinating look at one vital aspect of everyday life at the end of the Middle Ages.

'Neither scholars nor literate anglers should miss this milestone work. It opens a bright window on the early culture, context, and practice of fishing, and stands as an eloquent challenge to other researchers to expand the long-neglected study of this important part of European life.' -- Paul Schullery, former director, The American Museum of Fly Fishing, and author of American Fly Fishing: A History.

About the Author
Richard Hoffmann is Professor at York University in Toronto, Ontario, and has a long-standing interest in fishery and the history of fishing. His previous book, Land, Liberties and Lordship in a Late Medieval Countryside (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989) won the Herbert Baxter Adams prize of the American Historical Association, and honourable mention for the Wallace K. Ferguson Prize of the Canadian Historical Association.

Reviews

'Appeals to diverse readers' interests. There is no question that the author accomplishes his goal to present critical editions of various fishers' tracts from the Late Middle Ages to the Renaissance. His translations also prove to be of first rate, and so his in-depth investigation of fishing as a craft during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age. At the same time Hoffmann never forgets that also lay people, especially fishing enthusiasts, might read his book, hence never relents in his efforts to describe his subject matter in a very clear, easily readable fashion understandable both for the expert and the lay person.'

-- Albrecht Classen * The Medieval Review *

"..Fisher's Craft and Lettered Art is bound to delight and inform readers, whether they be anglers or not. Those who bring to it an acquaintance with fish and fishing will gain from its historical insights, and those whose interest is more historical or academic will come away with a greater appreciation of the medieval life and mind.'

-- Michael Todd * York University Gazette *



Book Information
ISBN 9780802078537
Author Richard C. Hoffmann
Format Paperback
Page Count 408
Imprint University of Toronto Press
Publisher University of Toronto Press
Weight(grams) 640g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 28mm