A rather wonderful book with a superb title that had its roots in a much less well known work published by The Field in 1914. Probably the best way of describing this one is that it is a borderline classic - the sort of book you read once, find incredibly amusing and tell all your friends about, but never read again because there are more interesting things to do with life. There are chapters on anglers’ excuses, how to deal with bulls, truthfulness and popular errors; all of them illustrated with Studdy’s wonderful plates.

The trouble is that this is also one of those books that runs out of steam three-quarters of the way through and I suspect that the original, much shorter version is the better of the two, although copies are rare. But don’t let me put you off - Sheringham was a superb writer and if you haven’t read this one, you are in for a treat. Just don't go out and pay a fortune for a copy.

The original was published as a limited and a trade edition and various reprints available, best of which is probably from The Flyfisher’s Classic Library. The image shows the trade print of the first edition.