"Ask Mama;" Or, The Richest Commoner in England. With Illustrations by John Leech.

"Ask Mama;" Or, The Richest Commoner in England. With Illustrations by John Leech.

Author: Surtees, R.S. (17 May 1805 – 16 March 1864)

8vo.(5.5" x 8.625") c1900.Surtees, R.S. London. Printed for Subscribers Bradbury, Agnew & Co. Full red publishers cloth with blackstamp and gilt decoration to the upper board, gilt title towards head. Spine with similar decoration, gilt and blackstamp title towards head, gilt "Illust.by" towards foot with gilt edition at foot. Illustrated with John Leech illustrations, 70 wood engravings, 13 steel engravings all hand-colored. Edgewear, large dampstain to lower quarter of covers, dampstain to fore-edge affecting first few and last pages, not affecting images or plates. Spine sun-faded, affecting gilt, text. Hand-colored illustration to title page with an additionl 13 hand-colored plates by John Leech. As-Is Sold with all faults.

From Wiki: Robert Smith Surtees (17 May 1805 – 16 March 1864) was an English editor, novelist and sporting writer, widely known as R. S. Surtees. He was the second son of Anthony Surtees of Hamsterley Hall, a member of an old County Durham family. He is remembered for his invented character of Jorrocks, a vulgar but good-natured sporting cockney grocer. Surtees left for London in 1825, intending to practise law in the capital, but had difficulty making his way and began contributing to the Sporting Magazine. He launched out on his own with the New Sporting Magazine in 1831, contributing the comic papers which appeared as Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities in 1838. Jorrocks, the sporting cockney grocer, with his vulgarity and good-natured artfulness, was a great success with the public, and Surtees produced more Jorrocks novels in the same vein, notably Handley Cross and Hillingdon Hall, where the description of the house is very reminiscent of Hamsterley. Another hero, Soapey Sponge, appears in Mr Sponge's Sporting Tour, possibly Surtees's best work. All Surtees's novels were composed at Hamsterley Hall, where he wrote standing up at a desk, like Victor Hugo. Though Surtees did not set his novels in any readily identifiable locality, he uses North East place-names like Sheepwash, Howell (How) Burn, and Winford Rig. His memorable Geordie James Pigg, in Handley Cross, is based on Joe Kirk, a Slaley huntsman. The famous incident, illustrated by Leech, when Pigg jumps into the melon frame was inspired by a similar episode involving Kirk in Corbridge. As a creator of comic personalities, Surtees is still readable today. William Makepeace Thackeray envied him his powers of observation, while William Morris considered him "a master of life" and ranked him with Charles Dickens. The novels are engaging and vigorous, and abound with sharp social observation, with a keener eye than Dickens for the natural world. Perhaps Surtees most resembles the Dickens of The Pickwick Papers, which was originally intended as mere supporting matter for a series of sporting illustrations to rival Jorrocks. Most of Surtees's later novels, were illustrated by John Leech. They included Mr Sponge's Sporting Tour (1853), Ask Mamma (1858), Plain or Ringlets? (1860) and Mr Facey Romford's Hounds (1865). The last of these novels appeared posthumously. The historian Norman Gash asserted that "His leading male characters were coarse or shady; his leading ladies dashing and far from virtuous; his outlook on society satiric to the point of cynicism." Thomas Seccombe, writing in 1898 for the Dictionary of National Biography, said that it was the illustrations of Leech that gave Surtees' work any notability: The coarseness of the text was redeemed in 1854 by the brilliantly humorous illustrations of John Leech, who utilised a sketch of a coachman made in church as his model for the ex-grocer. Some of Leech's best work is to be found among his illustrations to Surtees's later novels, notably Ask Mamma and Mr. Romford's Hounds.

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