BINDINGS - Robert Smith SURTEES (1805-64). [Selected Works], London, 1888 [or c.1888], 7 volumes, 8vo, 102 hand-coloured vignettes and plates, FINELY BOUND in red half morocco gilt by Mudie. (7)

BINDINGS - Robert Smith SURTEES (1805-64).  [Selected Works]. London: John C. Nimmo [and others], 1888 [or c.1888]. 7 volumes, 8vo (218 x 140mm). Half titles, 5 hand-coloured vignettes and 97 hand-coloured wood-engraved plates by John Leech, Henry Alken, Hablot K. Browne and others (occasional mainly marginal very light spotting and staining). FINELY BOUND in contemporary red half morocco by Mudie, spines elaborately gilt in compartments, marbled edges and endpapers. "His eight long 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 often repeated catch-phrases, and perceptive social observation distinguish him from other writers of this genre and won him praise from Thackeray and others; the illustration of his novels by Leech, Alken, and Phiz [i.e. Hablot K. Browne] also contributed to their success" (The Oxford Companion to English Literature, ed. M. Drabble, 1985). A FINE SET OF SURTEES' "JORROCKS" NOVELS. (7)