Esox The Story of a Pike
Esox The Story of a Pike a Book Written By Wolfgang Zeiske and Illustrated By Hans Baltzer
The pike (Esox lucius), described by Thoreau as ‘the swiftest,
coasest, and most ravenous of fishes’, is a freshwater predator that is widely found in Britain, Europe and America, Esox, the pike of Wolfgang Zeiske’s absorbing story, lives in a German lake. By luck as much as anything else he survives the consent and many dangers that beset fish from the egg to the grown state - ducks, other fish, and human beings - and grows into a huge fish sume five feet long, immensely powerful, voracious and swift.
His fierce and predatory nature leads him from a diet of smaller fish to one of water rats and an occasional duck, and brings him to the notice of the game keeper who determines to catch him. The ensuing struggle between the man and the slant predator is as gripping a story as any angler could wish, whatever his views on pike may be.
Hans Baltzer’s vigorous black and white illustrations both complement and embellish the story, and serve to give the book an added distinction.
First UK edition published by Richard Sadler & Brown in 1967 from the German translation first published in 1964 by Kinderbuchverlag in Berlin
