SOURCE: Martin, Jessica. Introduction to Izaak Walton: Selected Writings, edited by Jessica Martin, pp. Vii-xxvii. Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1997.

In the following excerpt, Martin attempts to reconcile the persona of Walton as known through his writings with the facts of his life.

In Winchester, on 9 August 1683, Izaak Walton wrote his last piece of prose—his Will. He was ninety years old. On 24 October he had it witnessed and sealed with the bloodstone seal John Donne had given him, which he habitually used. Some weeks later, on 15 December, he died in Winchester, when the weather was exceptionally cold.

From this once private document, which now makes the final piece in this selection, Walton speaks directly as he does not in any public work of prose. The best-known of these, the Compleat Angler, built as it is around two or three characterised voices, shows him clothed in genial personae. His biographical...