BIBLIOTHECA SALMO SALAR

A Selection of Rare Books, Manuscripts, Journals, Diaries, Photograph Albums, & Ephemera on the Subject of Atlantic Salmon Fishing from the Collection of Charles B. Wood III

Charles B. Wood, David R. Godine Publisher, Hardcover $75 (248pp), 978-1-56792-458-9

With a certain, high level of fanaticism in mind, to call salmon fishing a sport, chess a board game, landscape painting a hobby, mountain climbing a hike, just doesn’t quite capture the spirit of the thing. And when the sought prize is Atlantic salmon, all bets are off because commercial fishing, dams, and pollution have so decimated the population, they spawn in only a few remote and guarded rivers of Scandinavia, Great Britain, Iceland, and Canada.

More accessible are the books about Salmo Salar (Atlantic salmon). What exists is a fascinating, esoteric canon of adventure, lore, treatises on flies, descriptions of clubs, photo albums, and fantastically rare accounts of grand ol’ fishing exploits. Antiquarian bookseller and passionate salmon fisher, Charles Wood has amassed the world’s greatest collection of Atlantic salmon works, and this beautiful coffee-tabler, much of it possessing a high level of historical value, showcases 230 of the most interesting,.