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A handful of sinister characters and dark plots pepper this collection, but for the most part, these 25 tales portray fishermen as endearing folk, good humored and quick with a yarn, eager to help a novice, and famously prone to exaggerate. The scenery includes roiling oceans, still ponds, swift rivers, and bubbling brooks, and the fish themselves range from the noble trout to salmon, tarpon, bass, dolphin, permit, flounder, grouper, weakfish, northern pike, and even a sea monster. This collection includes three classic stories: the Grimm fairy tale “The Fisherman and His Wife,†first published in 1815; “A Fishing Excursion,†by the mid-19th-century French writer Guy de Maupassant; and Henry Van Dyke’s 1899 tale, “The Fatal Success.†The remaining stories span the 20th century and represent contemporary favorites such as Stephen King and E. Annie Proulx; early-century masters Stephen Vincent Benet and John Taintor Foote; and Philip Wylie, P. J. O'Rourke, Robert Traver, among others.