This fictional hunting tale is titled "Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour" by Robert Smith Surtees. The author's name is not mentioned on the title page, but the full page reads "Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour, By The Author Of 'Handley Cross', 'Jorrock's Jaunt's', Etc. Etc" and Robert Smith Surtees wrote the other two books listed here. The book was illustrated by John Leech and published in London in 1853 by Bradbury and Evans, and it is a first edition mixed state. The book is 3/4 bound, with five raised bands, a gilt title and gilt decorations on the spine, marbled covers and endpapers, a colored plate on the frontis titled "Mr. Sponge declares himself", then the vignette title page, a dedication page, a one-page Preface, two pages of Contents, one page about the Engravings on Steel, a page listing the Engravings on Wood, it is 408 pages long, the top edge is gilt, and it was bound in London by Morrell (see the first blank endpaper). There are thirteen hand-colored plates, but the last plate titled "Mr. Sponge Declares Himself" has become the frontispiece, instead of on page 385, and we don't know if the binder took this liberty himself and just placed the plate at the beginning instead of the end, but all the colored plates are present. The Dedication page here also reads "To The Right Honourable Lord Elcho", which makes this a first edition first state, because the second state reads "To The Right Honourable Earl Elcho". The woodcut on page 230 is in the corrected second state; in the first state the woodcut appears on page 229. The book was originally published in parts in 1853, and this is the first time the tale came out in book form. The original covers and spine from the book are laid in at the rear, and the colored plates are reminiscent of Thomas Rowlandson, with numerous black and white vignettes about fox hunting throughout the book. Robert Smith Surtees (1805-1864) was an English novelist and sporting writer who came from an old County Durham family. He is best remembered for his character of Jorrocks, a vulgar, but good-natured cockney grocer from the East side of London, accent and all. He created numerous comic personalities and was not among the most poplar novelists of his day - his work lacked the idealism and moralism of the Victorian era, his leading male characters were coarse or shady and his leading ladies were far from virtuous - but Thackeray envied his powers of observation, while William Morris considered him "a master of life" and ranked him up there with Dickens, and Surtees is still read today. Most of Surtees's later novels were illustrated by John Leech (1817-1864), an English caricaturist and illustrator best known for his work for Punch, a humorous middle-class magazine that combined political satire with light social comedy, and he was the first illustrator of Charles Dickens' 1843 novel A Christmas Carol. The book is 8vo. and measures 8 3/4 x 6 in. wide, the binding is tight and the pages and images are pretty clean, with occasional brown spots, light rubbing on the raised bands, the heel and crown and on the edges of the spine, and modest wear at the tips, and still an attractive book about fox hunting in the English countryside - the fox might not appreciate it, but that's the way people lived back then - and a complete series in the original wrapps goes for four figures. #117 #1657