Beschreibung:

Title: Set of six Sporting Novels by Surtees, finely bound Author: Surtees, Robert Smith Place: London Publisher: Date: 1847-1865 Description: Comprises: Hawbuck Grange; or, the Sporting Adventures of Thomas Scott Esq. [6], 329, [1] pp. With 8 etched plates by Phiz (Hablot K. Browne). (Tears to rear flyleaves, which were added when rebound). London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1847. * Mr. Sponge’s Sporting Tour. x, [2], 408 pp. With 13 hand-colored etched plates by John Leech woodcuts in the text. With first issue points: dedicated to Lord Elcho; p. 95 headed “Mr. Sponge’s Ssorting Tour”; however, there is a woodcut on p. 230, not p.229 (2nd issue). Tooley 476. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1853. * Handley Cross; or, Mr. Jorrocks’s Hunt. viii, [2], 550 pp. With 17 hand-colored etched plates by John Leech woodcuts in the text. With first issue point: “illustrious Leech” in the preface. Tooley 473. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1854. * "Ask Mamma;" or, The Richest Commoner in England. ix, [3], 412 pp. With 13 hand-colored etched plates by John Leech woodcuts in the text. Tooley 472. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1858. * "Plain or Ringlets?" viii, [2], 406 pp. With 13 hand-colored etched plates by John Leech including added title; woodcuts in the text. Tooley 477. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1860. * Mr. Facey Romford’s Hounds. vii, [2], 391 pp. With 24 hand-colored etched plates by John Leech and Hablot K. Browne (the first 14 plates are by Leech, the others, and the woodcut title-page vignette, are by Browne). Tooley 475. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1865. Together, 6 volumes. 8¼x5, later uniform ¾ gilt-ruled red levant morocco & marbled boards, spines lettered and tooled in gilt with sporting motifs, raised bands, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt; bound by R. Wallis. First Editions in book form, except Hawbuck Grange, with is the true first, and Handley Cross, which is the first illustrated edition, having been first published, without illustrations, in 3 volumes in 1843. Handsome set of these sporting classics. Robert Smith Surtees (1805-1864) "founded, with R. Ackermann the younger, the New Sporting Magazine in 1831, to which he contributed his comic sketches of Mr. Jorrocks, the sporting Cockney grocer, later collected as Jorrocks’s Jaunts and Jollities (1838). Jorrocks, whose adventures to some extent suggested the original idea of Pickwick Papers, reappears in Handley Cross (1843; expanded and illustrated by Leech, 1854). His second great character, Mr Soapey Sponge, appears in Mr. Sponge’s Sporting Tour (1853); another celebrated character was Mr. Facey Romford, who appears in his last novel, Mr. Facey Romford’s Hounds (1865). His eight long novels deal mainly with the characteristic aspects of English fox-hunting society, but his vivid caricatures, the absurd scenes he describes, the convincing dialect and often repeated catch-phrases, distinguish him from other writers of this genre. The illustration of his novels by Leech, Alken, and ‘Phiz’ (H.K. Browne) also contributed to their success" (The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature). Lot Amendments Condition: Some minor darkening, offsetting, and aging within, still in near fine to fine condition, with the armorial bookplates of Nicholas H. Noyes. Item number: 169985