FOUR SPORTING NOVELS OF R.S. SURTEES, HANDSOMELY BOUND, WITH HAND-COLORED PLATES

SURTEES, Robert. Hawbuck Grange; Ask Mama; Plain or Ringlets?; Mr. Romford's Hounds. Four volumes. Octavo, contemporary three-quarter green morocco gilt, raised bands, marbled endpapers, top edges gilt, uncut. $850.

Four of Surtees' iconic sporting novels, with hand-colored title page vignettes, 50 hand-colored plates, and 180 in-text black-and-white illustrations after John Leech, H.K. Browne and others, handsomely bound in morocco with gilt sporting emblems by Morrell.

Surtees' 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 perceptive social observation distinguish him from other writers of this genre" (Drabble, 950). This lavishly illustrated set is notable for the magnificent color plates after originals by Leech, "a pencil draughtsman without rival among English humorists," and Hablot K. Brown ("Phiz"), illustrator of many of Dickens' works, including The Pickwick Papers, whose title character was inspired in part by Mr. Jorrocks of Surtees' Handley Cross. Includes facsimiles of the original title pages for each novel. Sparrow, 202.

Plates and text fine, toning to handsome morocco-gilt bindings.