Under the pseudonym 'Athenian' Harry G. McClelland, basically a teenager, wrote many articles on fly tying in the Fishing Gazette. After passing at just 21 years of age, his articles were bundled in this book with the very unusual title 'The Trout Fly Dresser's Cabinet of Sevices or How to Tie Flies for Trout and Grayling fishing'.
This book (first published in 1898!) was highly regarded by Theodore Gordon, Dettes and Harry Darbee. It's quite remarkable how much knowledge he had on fly tying. Many ideas, which got common many years later, that was considered new back then was already covered by McClelland: using stripped quill for segmented bodies, using rooster hackle for wrapping hackle and various wings.
Art Flick who is credited with the Red Quill using a stripped Rhode Island rooster hackle feather, but Harry already wrote (page 38):
“Another kind of quill is that obtained by stripping a long hackle or saddle feather
of its plume on either side. It makes a very natural looking body, which, so to speak, tapers
itself automatically in the forming; the quill used being tapered, and so the joints of the body
becoming wider and thicker as the winding proceeds from tail to shoulder. A friend, to
whom my first acquaintance with this material was due, makes a very beautiful red spinner
of the shaft of the saddle feather of a dark red game cock.”
Due to the age of the book it seems to be free of copyright. This book can be downloaded here.
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