My Moby Dick

by William Humphrey

As Humphrey himself writes:-

"...The literature of angling falls into two genres, the instructional and the devotional. The former is written by fishermen who write, the latter by writers who fish..."

Humphrey is clearly the latter. My Moby Dick is a quietly enthralling piece of work from one of angling's relatively unknown but truly great storytellers. I read the entire piece from cover to cover, quite by accident, in a single sitting. It is one of those books that urges you to turn just one more page...again and again.

The story tells of one man's obsession to catch a giant one-eyed trout he chanced upon as he drove past a roadside pool one day. The angler in question is not a fanatical specimen hunter but this fish is, in his own words "...too big not to be fished for".

I'll keep this review short as really this is a book that should speak for itself. For the price, it is simply a must have. It would undoubtedly make a good stocking-filler type present for Christmas and birthdays too.

At the time of writing this title is still available from Coch Y Bonddu Books at the 1979 cover price of £3!

First published in 1978 by Doubleday. This review has been written after reading the 1979 first UK edition by Chatto & Windus.

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