Fishers' Craft and Lettered Art

Richard Hoffmann is Professor at York University in Toronto, Ontario, and has a long-standing interest in fishery and the history of fishing. His previous book, Land, Liberties and Lordship in a Late Medieval Countryside (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989) won the Herbert Baxter Adams prize of the American Historical Association, and honourable mention for the Wallace K. Ferguson Prize of the Canadian Historical Association.

'Appeals to diverse readers' interests. There is no question that the author accomplishes his goal to present critical editions of various fishers' tracts from the Late Middle Ages to the Renaissance. His translations also prove to be of first rate, and so his in-depth investigation of fishing as a craft during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age. At the same time Hoffmann never forgets that also lay people, especially fishing enthusiasts, might read his book, hence never relents in his efforts to describe his subject matter in a very clear, easily readable fashion understandable both for the expert and the lay person.'- Albrecht Classen (The Medieval Review) "..Fisher's Craft and Lettered Art is bound to delight and inform readers, whether they be anglers or not. Those who bring to it an acquaintance with fish and fishing will gain from its historical insights, and those whose interest is more historical or academic will come away with a greater appreciation of the medieval life and mind.'- Michael Todd (York University Gazette)