1926 Handley Cross, Or Mr Jorrocks's Hunt

Description

Colour Plates, Illustrated, Leather Binding, Pleasing Copy, Publishers' Original Binding, Signed Binding

Robert Smith Surtees was an English editor, novelist and sporting writer best known for his contributions to the first English sporting periodical to devote itself to every type of sport, 'The Sporting Magazine'. Surtees launched his own sporting magazine entitled the 'New Sporting Magazine' in 1831, contributing the comic papers which appeared as 'Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities' in 1838. Jorrocks, the eponymous, vulgar and artful sporting cockney grocer was a great success with the public and is often considered as one of the great comic characters of English Literature. Surtees produced several works in the same vein as his 'Jorrocks novels', including this text, 'Handley Cross', whose protagonist James Pigg was actually based on a real person: Joe Kirk, a Slaley huntsman. Collated, complete with copious in-text wood illustrations and thirty plates and a coloured frontispiece, by Surtees' long-term collaborator John Leech.