Fly Fishing: Memories of Angling Days

Fly Fishing: Memories of Angling Days, also published as Fly Fishing by J. R. Hartley, is a fishing book by British angling author Michael Russell under the pseudonym of J. R. Hartley. It was published by Stanley Paul in 1991 and was intended to capitalise on the popularity of the J. R. Hartley fictional character.

Fly Fishing: Memories of Angling Days
Cover
AuthorJ. R. Hartley
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
GenreFishing
Published1991
PublisherStanley Paul
ISBN0091751926

History

In 1983, Yellow Pages in the United Kingdom ran a television advert featuring an elderly gentleman visiting bookshops looking for a copy of a book called Fly Fishing by J. R. Hartley. After several failed visits to shops, he finds a copy of the book using Yellow Pages and the telephone. The advert ends with the man identifying himself as the author, J. R. Hartley. As a result, several bookshops and the British Library received a large number of requests for a copy of the non-existent book.[1]

Angling expert Michael Russell had written a book on fly fishing and chose to have it published under the name of J. R. Hartley citing the cult status of the advert. The book was published as Fly Fishing: Memories of Angling Days in 1991 by Stanley Paul.[2] The publishers hired Norman Lumsden, who played J. R. Hartley in the advert, to promote the book as the public face of the author.[1] Despite Russell being credited as the sole author, there have been claims that other people helped him write it.[3] The book was popular and sold 130,000 copies over the Christmas period alone in the United Kingdom.[2] As a result, it reached the top of the Christmas bestseller list in 1991.[4][5]

Legacy

The popularity of the book led to two sequels, J. R. Hartley Casts Again: More Memories of Angling Days and Golfing by J. R. Hartley.[2] In 2011, BookFinder.com announced that Fly Fishing: Memories of Angling Days was the 17th most sought-after out-of-print book worldwide.[6] In 2012, a bookshop in Tonbridge, Kent, was broken into by an intoxicated person who called the police and told them he was reading Fly Fishing by J. R. Hartley.[7]

References
  1. Wooley, Benjamin (1993). Virtual Worlds: A Journey in Hype and Hyperreality. Penguin Science. p. 5. ISBN 0140154396.
  2. Owen, James (2012). Trout. Reaktion Books. p. 125. ISBN 1861899785.
  3. Ellis Barker. "Suffolk mum shares joys of parenthood with wider audience in funny stories written while her baby sleeps". East Anglian Daily Times. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
  4. "The Man In the Know". Daily Record. Retrieved 2018-01-19 – via HighBeam Research.
  5. "Villagers Take a Leaf out of Yellow Pages to Clinch Award". Western Mail. Cardiff. Retrieved 2018-01-21 – via HighBeam Research.
  6. "The most wanted used books, according to Bookfinder". Los Angeles Times. 2011-08-26. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
  7. "Man Breaks into Shop – Just to Read JR Hartley ; Drunken Burglar Called Police to Confess What He Had Done". Kent and Sussex Courier. Archived from the original on 2018-11-18. Retrieved 2018-01-19 – via HighBeam Research.
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