author
Robert Venables
d. 1687
Best remembered as a Parliamentarian soldier, he also left behind a lively early fishing book that stayed popular through several editions. His life moved from civil war and the Caribbean campaign to a quieter final chapter in Cheshire.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Robert Venables (c. 1613–10 December 1687) was an English soldier and writer from Cheshire. He fought for Parliament in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and later served under the Commonwealth, building a reputation as an experienced officer before his military career ended after the troubled Western Design in the Caribbean.
Even so, his name lasted in print as well as in politics and war. In 1662 he published The Experienced Angler, a practical treatise on fishing that reportedly went through five editions during his lifetime, showing that readers valued him not just as a soldier but as an observant and useful writer.
After the Restoration, he returned to private life. He was later linked to the Farnley Wood Plot but released without charge, and he spent his later years at an estate in Wincham, Cheshire, where he lived quietly until his death in 1687.