Robert Smith Surtees First Editions

• Jorrocks's Jaunts and Jollities — 1838 · Walter SpiersTrue first edition in book form, published by Walter Spiers in London in 1838, collecting sketches that had first appeared unillustrated in the New Sporting Magazine between 1831 and 1834. The first edition is octavo, running to 358 pages, and illustrated with twelve plates by 'Phiz' (Hablot Knight Browne), issued in the publisher's gilt-blocked cloth. The far more famous edition with hand-colored aquatint plates…. Book-form publication began with this 1838 Spiers edition; the unillustrated magazine sketches that preceded it in the New Sporting Magazine (1831-1834) do not constitute prior book publication. The Alken-illustrated edition of 1843 is a distinct later second edition, not a suppressed or alternate state of the 1838 first. The edition most often associated with the title in the market -- with hand-colored aquatint plates by Henry Alken -- is the 1843 Ackermann second edition, not the 1838 Spiers true first, which carries plates by Phiz instead. A separately withdrawn Alken portrait plate of Jorrocks, 'A Citizen of Credit and Renown,' is known from only one located example and belongs to that later 1843 edition; it has no bearing on….
• Handley Cross; or, Mr. Jorrocks's Hunt — 1843 · Henry ColburnTrue first edition of the text: an unillustrated three-volume novel published anonymously by Henry Colburn in 1843, attributed on the title page only to 'the Author of Jorrocks's Jaunts and Jollities.' Critically, the 1843 title page itself reads 'Handley Cross; or, The Spa Hunt. A Sporting Tale' -- not the now-familiar 'Mr. Jorrocks's Hunt' subtitle, which was not adopted until Surtees's later revision. The true…. The unillustrated 1843 Colburn three-volume edition, titled on its title page 'Handley Cross; or, The Spa Hunt,' has textual and bibliographic priority as the true first; it followed unillustrated serialization in the New Sporting Magazine, which does not constitute prior book publication. The John Leech-illustrated 1853-54 Bradbury and Evans edition is a distinct, heavily revised and expanded later edition,…. Every subsequent printing -- the 1854 Bradbury and Evans first illustrated edition, the 1888 subscription reissue, and later Leech-illustrated reprints -- carries the 'Mr. Jorrocks's Hunt' title, so that title alone cannot identify a first edition. Only a three-volume, unillustrated set titled 'Handley Cross; or, The Spa Hunt' and dated 1843 with the Colburn imprint is the true first.
• Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour — 1853 · Bradbury and EvansFirst edition in book form, published by Bradbury and Evans in 1853, following prior issue in thirteen numbered parts delivered as twelve monthly installments (parts 7 and 8 combined) from January to December 1852. First-state points include the dedication reading 'Lord Elcho' (corrected to 'Earl Elcho' in the later state), a woodcut appearing on page 230 in the corrected state versus page 229 in the earlier…. The original thirteen-number parts issue (delivered in twelve monthly installments, January-December 1852) preceded the single-volume 1853 book edition. Bradbury and Evans continued under that name through the 1850s; the printing partnership was not renamed Bradbury, Agnew & Co. until 1872. Later printings bearing that successor imprint, rather than 'Bradbury and Evans,' therefore postdate the 1853 first by at least two decades.

More Literary Fiction (US) & Award Winners shelves: Robert Stone, Roger Zelazny, Rudy Rucker, Rudyard Kipling, Russell Banks, Sally Rooney.

← All authors · All genres · part of the First-Edition Identification resource.