Surtees, Robert Smith [key], 1803–64, English novelist. He created John Jorrocks, the sporting grocer, who appears in Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities (1838), a series of humorous sketches first published in the New Sporting Magazine, which Surtees had helped to found in 1831. The novel Handley Cross (1843) continued the career of Jorrocks. Surtees's other novels include Hawbuck Grange (1847), Hillingdon Hall (1845), Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour (1853), Ask Mamma (1858), Plain or Ringlets? (1860), and Mr. Facey Romford's Hounds (1865). Surtees knew English hunting life well, and his books have a tone of lusty humor and hearty satire. Many of his sketches were enhanced by the spirited illustrations of John Leech.
See Hunting Scenes from Surtees (comp. by L. Gough, 1953).
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