And for by cause that this present treatyse sholde not come to the hondys of eche ydle persone whyche wolde desire it yf it were enpryntyd allone by itself & put in a lytyll plaunflet therfore I have compylyd it in a greter volume of dyverse bokys concernynge to gentyll & noble men to the entent that the forsayd ydle persones whyche sholde have but lytyll mesure in the sayd dysporte of fyshyng sholde not by this meane utterly dystroye it.
EMPRYNTED AT WESTMESTRE BY WYNKYN THE WORDE THE YERE THYN-CARNACON OF OUR LORD M.CCCC.LXXXXVI.
Reprinted by Thomas White, Crane Court
MDCCCXXVII.
WALTER BESANT
(1838-)
alter Besant, born in Portsmouth, England, in 1838, did not begin his career as a novelist till he was thirty years old. His preparation for the works that possess so certain a maturity of execution, with as certain an ideal of performance, was made at King's College, London, and afterwards at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he took mathematical honors. Abandoning his idea of entering the Church, he taught for seven years in the Royal College of Mauritius. Ill health compelled his return to England, and he then took up literature as a profession. His first novel he had the courage to burn when the first publisher to whom he showed it refused it.