Copies: 525 cloth, 125 leather - both limited

Extent: 136pp

Size: 270 x 200mm

Binding: Cloth, and full leather (in slipcase)

Illustrations: Author's colour paintings

A Pleasure of Fishes

Bernard Venables

Bernard Venables was well known as a writer, and as the creator of Mr Crabtree, but was less well known as an artist. Here, for the first time, is a book that shows the beautiful and meticulously detailed watercolours of a man whose great love of fish and nature inspired a generation. Each full colour painting is accompanied by a description of
the fish species, its habitat and its characteristics. In all, twenty-eight species of fish are covered - including barbel, carp, eels, pike, salmon, trout and even gudgeon and sticklebacks. This was his last, and perhaps most cherished, work. As he says in his own words: 'How lovely to do  . . . a work with regard for nothing but the very best that might be done. To do it with the fish being studied, drawn and painted from the living model in its own element . . . this book is an expression of the many years of delight that I have found in fish and their subtle half-hidden ways.'

This edition is limited and each book is hand-numbered.