Topic: Izaak Walton

Izaak Walton (9 August 1593 - 15 December 1683) was an English writer, author of The Compleat Angler.

Walton was born at Stafford; the register of his baptism gives his father's name as Gervase. His father, who was an innkeeper as well as a landlord of a tavern, died before Izaak was three. His mother then married another innkeeper.

He settled in London where he began trading as an ironmonger in a small shop in the upper story of Thomas Gresham's Royal Burse or Exchange in Cornhill. In 1614 he had a shop in Fleet Street, two doors west of Chancery Lane in the parish of St Dunstan's. At about this time he became friendly with Dr John Donne, then vicar of the parish church.