Surtees - Set "Sporting Novels" - 1900

THE MASTERPIECES OF ENGLISH SPORTING LIFE: SET OF 2 ILLUSTRATED VOLUMES - KEGAN PAUL
A precious coordinated set consisting of two milestones of British sporting and satirical literature from the 19th century, published in London by the renowned publishing house Kegan Paul & Co. at the beginning of the 20th century. The lot includes the famous and roguish adventures of the grotesque merchant and hunter John Jorrocks, created by the genius of R.S. Surtees, paired with the legendary and scandalous biography of the eccentric John Mytton written under the pseudonym of “Nimrod.” Both volumes feature an exceptional color and black-and-white illustrated apparatus that captures the spirit of hunting, balls, and taverns of Georgian and Victorian England.
REASONS FOR COLLECTING
The Golden Age of Satirical Illustration: Henry Alken, Phiz (engraver for Charles Dickens), and T.J. Rawlins’s plates describe with incomparable irony and dynamism the falls from horses, toasts, coach disasters, and the aristocratic lifestyle of the era. Elegant Library Uniformity: the two volumes present with mirror-like editorial bindings in full green cloth with splendid gold lettering on the spines. A visually striking ensemble to enrich the shelves of a classy library or private club. Jorrocks is an iconic figure in 19th-century British popular culture, so much so that he strongly influenced the birth of Dickens’s Pickwick Club. John Mytton’s life, on the other hand, is the wild and true account of one of the most whimsical and wayward gentlemen in English history.
MARKET VALUE
Books dedicated to early 20th-century English “Sporting Novels” maintain a very solid collecting market, especially in English-speaking countries and among enthusiasts of horsemanship and hunting traditions. A two-volume set in coordinated bindings signed by Kegan Paul has a commercial value estimated between €300 and €480, depending on the completeness of the plates.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Cloth bindings with some signs of wear, rubbing to the headcaps and corners, and a partial and uniform fading of the original color on the spines. Pages with some foxing and natural browning. In old books, with a centuries-long history, a few imperfections may be present, not always noted in the description. Pp. (2); 24; 272; (2). (2); 26; 234; 2nn; (2).
FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
John Jorrocks's Jaunts and Jollities.
London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.
Surtees, Robert Smith.

Memoirs of the Life of the Late John Mytton.
London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.
Nimrod (Apperley, Charles James).
CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
Robert Smith Surtees (1805–1864) is considered the father of humorous English sporting fiction. With the character of John Jorrocks, a rough London merchant transformed into an unlikely country gentleman, he created one of the most successful satires of Victorian society, targeting the world of fox-hunting, rural aristocracy, and the ambitions of the new middle class. His works deeply influenced Charles Dickens in creating the Pickwick Club and helped fix in the collective imagination the myth of the British “sporting life.”
Alongside Surtees’s fiction, the biography of John Mytton tells of a real person, famous for his extreme exploits, an inexhaustible passion for horses, hunting, and racing, and for a life as reckless as it was self-destructive. The combination of the two volumes offers an extraordinary panorama of English equestrian and hunting culture between the 18th and 19th centuries.
BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHORS
Robert Smith Surtees was born in Durham in 1805. Trained as a lawyer, he soon left the profession to pursue journalism and prose. He founded the famous periodical New Sporting Magazine and became one of the most popular authors of the Victorian era thanks to the John Jorrocks stories, a character destined to become a staple of English literature. He died in 1864 leaving behind a body of work that continues to be reprinted and collected.
Charles James Apperley (1777–1843), better known by the pseudonym “Nimrod,” was the most authoritative British sports writer of the early 19th century. A skilled horseman and journalist, he wrote for the leading hunting and equestrian magazines. His biography of John Mytton is considered one of the masterpieces of English hunting literature.
PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
The elegant illustrated editions published by Kegan Paul & Co. in the early 20th century represent the most prestigious reprintings of the classics of British sporting literature. Enriched by the renowned illustrations of Henry Alken, Hablot Knight Browne (“Phiz”), and Thomas J. Rawlins, they preserved the character of gift and library editions, intended for a cultured audience and lovers of riding, hunting, and English traditions. Even today these reissues are sought after for their typographic quality and their rich iconography.
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
Tooley, English Books with Coloured Plates.
Schwerdt, Hunting, Hawking, Shooting.
Abbey, Life in England.
Podeschi, Books on the Horse and Horsemanship.
Dictionary of National Biography, entries for “Robert Smith Surtees” and “Charles James Apperley.”
COPAC / British Library Catalogue.