Izaak Walton
Who was Izaak Walton?
English author and biographer (1593-1683)
Biographical data adapted from Wikipedia’s article on Izaak Walton (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Biography
Izaak Walton was born in Stafford, England, and baptized on 21 September 1593. He grew up in the Midlands before moving to London as a teenager, where he worked as a linen draper. This job connected him with the intellectual and literary communities of the city, and he became friends with some of the most notable figures of his time, including the poet and clergyman John Donne. These relationships influenced his writing life far beyond his business.
Walton wrote both biographies and a well-known book about fishing. His biographies, written over several decades, covered people like John Donne, Henry Wotton, Richard Hooker, George Herbert, and Robert Sanderson. These works, gathered in a collection called Walton's Lives, were some of the earliest English literary biographies and were admired for their personal and thoughtful style.
During the English Civil War, Walton supported the Royalist side. After their defeat at the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644, he left London and moved to Shallowford in Staffordshire. This rural retreat had a significant impact on his writing. The calm countryside around Shallowford inspired what became his most famous work, The Compleat Angler, first published in 1653. The book, in the form of a conversation between a fisherman, a hunter, and a fowler, mostly focuses on the fisherman's view. It serves as both a practical guide to fishing and a reflection on patience, nature, and the thoughtful life.
Walton returned to London around 1650 and continued to write and update his works into old age. The Compleat Angler was revised and expanded with several editions during his lifetime. He spent his later years mainly in Winchester, where he died on 15 December 1683 at the age of ninety. He continued writing into his eighties, finishing his biography of Bishop Sanderson after turning seventy. His long life was remarkable for the time, and he kept writing for more than half a century.
Before Fame
Walton was born around 1593 in Stafford, into a modest family. He got a practical education rather than a scholarly one. As a young man, he moved to London and worked as a linen draper, likely in the city's Cheap ward. This was a respectable job that put him in the urban mercantile class, but it was his friendliness and curiosity that connected him with writers, clergymen, and poets.
His friendship with John Donne, the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, was particularly influential. Through Donne and others, he became involved in the religious and literary discussions of early 17th-century England. When Donne passed away in 1631, Walton wrote a short biographical memoir for an edition of Donne's sermons. The positive feedback from this work motivated him to write biographies of other notable men, creating another career path alongside his trade, which eventually became what he was best known for.
Key Achievements
- Authored The Compleat Angler (1653), one of the most frequently reprinted books in the English language
- Wrote biographies of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Richard Hooker, George Herbert, and Robert Sanderson, later collected as Walton's Lives
- Pioneered the form of intimate literary biography in English letters
- Produced a body of work spanning more than fifty years, completing major writings well into his eighties
- Left Shallowford cottage to the local poor, establishing a charitable legacy that endures as a heritage site
Did You Know?
- 01.Walton bequeathed his cottage at Shallowford, Staffordshire, to the local poor; it is now preserved as a museum dedicated to his life and work.
- 02.The Compleat Angler has been reprinted more often than almost any other book in the English language, with well over 400 editions recorded since its first publication in 1653.
- 03.Walton was personally acquainted with John Donne and witnessed the last years of his life, giving his biography of the poet an eyewitness quality rare in seventeenth-century writing.
- 04.He completed his final biography, the life of Bishop Robert Sanderson, in 1678, when he was approximately eighty-five years old.
- 05.The essayist Charles Lamb was among Walton's most enthusiastic literary admirers, helping to secure his reputation with later generations of readers.