Fishing Stories

by HUGHES, HENRY

• ISBN13: 9780307961884
• ISBN10: 0307961885
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-04-16
• Publisher: Everyman's Library

Summary

Fishing Stories nets an abundant catch of wonderful writing in a wide variety of genres and styles. The moods range from the rollicking humor of Rudyard Kipling’s “On Dry-Cow Fishing as a Fine Art” and the rural gothic of Annie Proulx’s “The Wer-Trout” to the haunting elegy of Norman Maclean’s “A River Runs Through It.”

Many of these tales celebrate human bonds forged over a rod, including Guy de Maupassant’s “Two Friends,” Jimmy Carter’s “Fishing with My Daddy,” and an excerpt from Ernest Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden. Some deal in reverence and romance, as in Roland Pertwee’s “The River God,” and some in adventure and the stuff of legend, as in Zane Grey’s “The First Thousand-Pounder” and Ron Rash’s “Their Ancient Glittering Eyes.” There are narratives that confront head-on the heartbreaks and frustrations of the sport, from Thomas McGuane’s meditation on  long spells of inaction as the essence of fishing in “The Longest Silence” to Raymond Carver’s story of a boy’s deflated triumph in the gut-wrenching masterpiece “Nobody Said Anything.” And alongside the works of literary giants are the memories of people both great and humble who have found meaning and fulfillment in fishing, from a former American president to a Scottish gamekeeper’s daughter.

Whether set against the open ocean or tiny mountain streams, in ancient China, tropical Tahiti, Paris under siege, or the vast Canadian wilderness, these stories cast wide and strike deep into the universal joys, absurdities, insights, and tragedies of life.

This beautiful hardcover edition features seven original woodcut illustrations by Paul Gentry, and includes a silk ribbon marker, European-style half-round spine, and full-cloth case with two-color foil stamping.

Author Biography

Poet, essayist and winner of the Oregon Book Award, Henry Hughes is a professor of English at Western Oregon University. He is also the editor of The Art of Angling: Poems about Fishing.

Table of Contents

Introduction
 
 
Nadyezhda Duvan, “The Salmon Spirit: An Ulchi Tale from Siberia”
 
Anonymous, “The Legend of Jiang Taigong”
 
Ueda Akinari, “The Dream Carp” (1769)
 
Washington Irving, “The Angler” (1820)
 
Anton Chekhov, “Albion’s Daughter” (1883)
 
Guy de Maupassant, “Two Friends” (1882)
 
Jerome K. Jerome, “Fishy” (1889)
 
Rudyard Kipling, “Dry-cow Fishing as a Fine Art” (1890)
 
Charles Frederick Holder, “I’ve Got Your Tuna, Sir” (1909)
 
Svend Fleuron, “The Angler’s End” (1919)
 
Georgina Ballantine, “Landing of the Record Tay Salmon” (1922)
 
F. A. Mitchell Hedges, “Battle with a Giant Ray” (1924)
 
Roland Pertwee, “The River God” (1928)
 
Zane Grey, “The First Thousand-Pounder” (1930)
 
Ernest Hemingway, from The Garden of Eden (1946–1961)
 
Roderick Haig-Brown, “The Children’s Bear” (1946) 
 
Elizabeth Enright, “A Little Short of the Record” (1951)
 
Nick Lyons, “On the Divide” (1974)
 
Raymond Carver, “Nobody Said Anything” (1973)
 
Norman Maclean, from A River Runs Through It (1976)
 
Annie Proulx, “The Wer-Trout” (1982)
 
Jimmy Carter, “Fishing With My Daddy” (1988)
 
Lin Sutherland, “Abe Lincoln Fished Here” (1990)
 
Ted Leeson, “Harvests” (1994)
 
David James Duncan, “First Native” (1994)
 
Marjorie Sandor, “Waiting for a Miracle: A Jew Goes Fishing” (1999)
 
Thomas McGuane, “The Longest Silence” (1999)
 
Charles Rangeley-Wilson, “Wash and Tope” (2006)
 
Ron Rash, “Their Ancient Glittering Eyes” (2006)
 
 
Acknowledgments