[SURTEES, Robert Smith]. Handley Cross; or, Mr. Jorrocks's Hunt. By the Author of "Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour," "Jorrocks's Jaunts," Etc. Etc. With Illustrations by John Leech. London: Bradbury & Evans, 1854.
First edition. Hardcover. Leather-bound. Octavo (205 x 145 x 45 mm.), pp. [viii], (2), 550. Bound in stunning full crimson polished calf by Bayntun Riviere (signed on the front endleaf with an ink pallet). Elaborate gilt ruling and tooling to spine and covers. Inner gilt dentelles. All page edges gilt. Hand-marbled endpapers. Half-title present. Title-page with vignette. 17 hand colored steel engravings - including the frontispiece, each engraving with a tissue guard, and numerous woodcut text illustrations by John Leech. Condition: NEAR FINE. Binding tight and secure the hinges perfectly intact. One or two tiny marks to the covers but otherwise immaculate. Contents similarly near pristine with one or two tiny edge repairs to leaves. Without previous ownership markings. An exquisite copy. Scarce thus.
Note: First Edition, second issue without Leech's name in the Preface. "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." (Norman Gash, Robert Smith Surtees, 2004). [Tooley 473].
