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With wood engravings and hand-colored etchings by John Leech, all first editions, all in the original monthly parts, bound in the original pictorial brick-red wrappers. Handley Cross had first appeared as an unillustrated three-decker in 1843. Mr. Facey Romford's Hounds also contains 10 hand-colored etchings by Hablot K. Browne (Phiz). While Surtees wrote nine novels in all, these five are usually referred to as his "sporting novels" as they are the only ones with the Leech illustrations for which they were made famous, and they are also the only ones issued in parts. "Surtees's range was limited, his style often clumsy and colloquial. Even in the better-constructed novels the plots are loose and discursive. Nevertheless, his sharp, authentic descriptions of the hunting field have retained their popularity among fox-hunters . Among a wider public his mordant observations on men, women, and manners; his entertaining array of eccentrics, rakes, and rogues; his skill in the construction of lively dialogue (a matter over which he took great pains); his happy genius for unforgettable and quotable phrases; and above all, his supreme comic masterpiece, Jorrocks, have won him successive generations of devoted followers. Although his proper place among Victorian novelists is not easy to determine, his power as a creative artist was recognized, among professional writers, by Thackeray, Kipling, Arnold Bennett, and Siegfried Sassoon, and earned the tributes of laymen as distinguished and diverse as William Morris, Lord Rosebery, and Theodore Roosevelt" (Gash, Robert Surtees and Early Victorian Society, 1993). The novels include: Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour. By the author of "Handley Cross," "Jorrocks's Jaunts," etc. etc. With illustrations by John Leech. London: Bradbury and Evans, 11, Bouverie Street, 1852-53. First edition in the original 13 monthly parts in 12; 8vo, pp. [12], 408; wood-engraved vignette on title page and 13 hand-colored engraved plates by John Leech, plus 86 wood engravings in the text; original pictorial brick-red wrappers; several discreet repairs, but otherwise in excellent and clean condition. According to Tooley's description, this copy is a mixed 1st and 2nd issue. The first issue points are its dedication to Lord Elcho, as here, (rather than Earl Elcho), and the spelling error on p. 95 (which Tooley gives as "Mr. Sponge's Sorting Tour," but which is here "Mr. Sponge's Ssorting Tour - a variant not noted by Tooley); and as in the 2nd issue, the woodcut appears on p. 230 and not 229, and the endpaper ads are printed in black not red. As for the advertisements, this copy has more than is given in Tooley, including part II which carries a half page blue green slip for Dickens's Bleak House; part IV has a 12-page insert for Ford's Eureka Shirts and other men's clothing; on the inside of the back wrapper in part IX is an ad for Thomas Harris and not, as in Tooley, the Vegetable Kingdom; in parts XII and XIII the wrapper ads, and the back inserts, are the same as in Tooley, but in the front, and in place of the Tooley items, are inserts for the Annual Christmas Number of Household Words, for the New Sporting Newspaper, and Punch's Almanack for 1853. Mellon/Podeschi 187; Schwerdt II, p. 238; Tooley 476. Handley Cross; or Mr. Jorrocks's Hunt. By the author of Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour &c. &c. &c. With illustrations by John Leech. London: Bradbury and Evans, 11, Bouverie Street, 1853-54. First edition in the original 17 monthly parts, first issue with "illustrious Leech" in the preface; 8vo, pp. x, [2], 412; wood-engraved vignette on title page and 17 hand-colored engraved plates by John Leech plus 85 wood engravings in the text; original pictorial brick-red wrappers; a very nice set. All of the advertisement matter, whether on the wrappers or as inserts, match those listed by Tooley, with the following variants: part X on the inside of the back wrapper has an ad for The Respirator, and not (as in Tooley) one for Wathers.
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