Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour

London: Bradbury and Evans, 1853. First edition. Hand colored frontispiece, 12 hand colored steel engravings, and numerous woodcut illustrations by John Leech. 1 vols. 8vo. Original tan pictorial cloth, gilt, some cover wear, shaken, else internally near fine. Cloth wrapper. First edition. Hand colored frontispiece, 12 hand colored steel engravings, and numerous woodcut illustrations by John Leech. 1 vols. 8vo. Surtees’ classic sendup of the English propertied classes, through the lens of the hunting field. The freeloading Sponge is a hilarious creation and Surtees is as keen an observer of the financial view of world (and marriage) in Victorian Britain as Dickens, and as Jane Austen was of Georgian society. Biscotti, Six Centuries of Foxhunting, p. 361