Robert Smith Surtees | Biography

Surtees is the best-known example in English of the sporting novelist. His novels offer a detailed picture of a specialized but vividly presented section of early Victorian society: the world of horsemen and huntsmen, sportsmen and farmers representative of English country life. He also records one of the multifarious aspects of social change in his period: the invasion by city dwellers and shopkeepers of the traditional pastimes and established hierarchy of the countryside.

Robert Smith Surtees was born in Durham of a family of landed gentry and educated at Durham Grammar School. His father was a typical country gentleman of the eighteenth century, and the boy acquired a taste for fox hunting early in life. As the second son, however, he was ineligible to inherit his father's estate; he was therefore obliged to take up a profession and was articled to lawyers, first in Newcastle and then (from 1825) in London, eventually qualifying as a Chancery practitioner. During this period he continued to hunt but encountered in the vicinity of London a very different species of huntsman from those he had known in Durham--an urban and socially heterogeneous collection of weekend sportsmen. It was on these experiences that he was to draw when, in the early 1830s, he began to write fiction.

From 1830 Surtees contributed articles to the Sporting Magazine.His first book was The Horseman's Manual (1831), a guide to "the laws relating to horses." In 1831 he joined with Rudolph Ackermann (1764-1834), a publisher and bookseller famous for his topographical prints, in starting the New Sporting Magazine, a periodical with which Surtees maintained a connection for the next five years. It was here that his first novel was published in monthly installments (July 1831-September 1834): to give it its full title, Jorrocks's Jaunts and Jollities; or, The Hunting, Shooting, Racing, Driving, Sailing, Eating, Eccentric and Extravagant Exploits of that Renowned Sporting Citizen, Mr. John Jorrocks of St. Botolph Lane and Great Coram Street. The work later appeared in volume form (1838) and was reprinted many times. It was illustrated by "Phiz" (H.K. Browne), best known for his association with Dickens.

The protagonist of Surtees's first novel, Mr. John Jorrocks, is a Cockney grocer, energetic, cheerful, vulgar, and fond of sporting life. The book records his pursuit of sporting activities in the neighborhood of London and occasionally farther afield; in its loose construction it resembles the eighteenth-century picaresque novel and enjoys the same opportunities of bringing its hero into contact with a wide variety of places and characters through his frequent travels. The figure of Jorrocks--comic, observant, and exuberant--provides a unifying device and transforms the book into something more than a collection of sketches (though it is, of course, true that Surtees's original readers encountered the various adventures as a series of separate stories published piecemeal over a long period).

Traveling about to Brighton or Margate, London or Paris, the unassuming Jorrocks is continually, comically out of place, whether flirting with a French countess or socializing with the people of the horse-racing town of Newmarket. Jorrocks is himself only when following his great passion, hunting: "My soul's on fire and eager for the chase! By heavens, I declare I've dreamt of nothing else all night, and the worst of it is that in a par-ox-ism of delight, when I thought I saw the darlings running into the warmint, I brought Mrs. J----such a dig in the side as knocked her out of bed, and she swears she'll go to Jenner and the court for the protection of injured ribs!" Among Jorrocks's most comical jaunts are "Swell and the Surrey," "The Turf: Mr. Jorrocks at Newmarket," and "Mr. Jorrocks in Paris." In his infinite capacity for farcical misadventure, Jorrocks anticipates Dickens's Mr. Pickwick, who was to make his appearance very soon after the serialization of Surtees's book was completed; and in at least one episode (the trial of Mr. Pickwick) Dickens probably borrowed from Surtees.

His elder brother having died unmarried in 1831, Surtees became involved in family affairs; in 1836 he gave up his law practice and his connection with the New Sporting Magazine and left London to return to Durham. In 1838, on the death of his father, he succeeded to the family property of Hamsterley Hall Estate; and there for the next quarter of a century he lived the life of a country squire, keeping his own pack of hounds and hunting regularly. He later became a justice of the peace and deputy-lieutenant of the Country of Durham. In 1841 he married Elizabeth Fenwick; they eventually had a son and two daughters.

Surtees continued his career of authorship, however, though all his works except the early nonfictional Horseman's Manual were published anonymously. Surtees valued the mask of anonymity throughout his career because it gave him the freedom to observe, record, and criticize sporting events and sportsmen. When an editor inadvertently did publish his name, he took quick action to castigate the offender and demand the removal of his identity. In a letter to W. Harrison Ainsworth, the editor of the New Monthly, Surtees explained his desire for anonymity: "I find that I can write far better and with far more pleasure to myself when I am freed to deny authorship if I like."

Handley Cross; or, The Spa Hunt: A Sporting Tale was published in three volumes in 1843; it was republished in 1854 with illustrations by the prominent artist John Leech. The subtitle of the later version is Mr. Jorrocks's Hunt, and the book forms the second of a trio of novels in which this character appears. Again, the structure is very loose, and indeed the author admits in his preface that it is a "tale" rather that a "novel." Handley Cross is a health resort frequented by a cross section of middle-class society; Jorrocks is appointed Master of Foxhounds to the local hunt. The situation provides Surtees with an opportunity to repeat his earlier success: a combination of minimal plot with a great variety of comic and eccentric characters, the whole being given rough unity by the presence of Jorrocks.

The third of the Jorrocks books is Hillingdon Hall; or, The Cockney Squire: A Tale of Country Life. After partial serialization in the New Sporting Magazine (1843-1844) it was published in three volumes in 1845. The hero has now quitted London for a country estate where he intends to practice agriculture on new scientific principles (as he observes, "science is the ticket"); his actual ignorance--for example, he confuses pine trees and pineapples--provides material for comedy and satire. In describing the exchange of the life of a city businessman for that of a country squire, Surtees gives expression to the dreams of thousands of Englishmen in the nineteenth century and after in response to growing urbanization.

Of Surtees's other novels, the best-known is Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour, serialized in the New Monthly Magazine (1849-1851) and later published in volume form (1853). Leech was again the illustrator. The central character, "a good-looking, rather vulgar-looking man," is a rogue whose way of life cocks a snook at Victorian earnestness and the work ethic: as his name suggests, he is prepared to sponge on anyone willing to supply him with free board and lodging. His progress from one house to another--and, since he is a sportsman, from one hunting field to another--provides the novel with its framework. As in all his best work, Surtees offers an abundance of pictures of country life executed with authority and authenticity of detail and a constantly changing cast of characters, many of them comic or eccentric.

Surtees's other novels are Hawbuck Grange (1847), which narrates the adventures of a sporting farmer, Tom Scott (illustrated by "Phiz"); Ask Mamma (1858), a satire on the pretensions of English society and the problems of the law (illustrated by Leech); Plain or Ringlets" (1860), an amusing story of a love triangle between Rosa McDermott, Jasper Goldspink, and Jack Bunting (illustrated by Leech); and Mr. Facey Romford's Hounds (1865), a partial sequel to Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour which traces the comical efforts of Romford in attempting to become Master of the Hounds. The adventures of the picaresque Romford and his heroine, Lucy Glitters, provide some of Surtees's best writing.

Surtees died suddenly while on holiday at Brighton. His literary importance consists of his achieving, in the words of Bonamy Dobrée, "an enlargement of the field of the novel, bringing in a whole new section of society, not only the followers of hounds ... but the small country dweller, the farmer, people whose interests were entirely local...." His books also furnish a valuable picture of the social background of the period; and thanks to the distinction of the artists who worked for him, they are of some importance in the history of book illustration. Surtees's continuing popularity in the twentieth century is suggested by the appearance of collected editions of his work in 1916, 1926, and 1930; the last of these has recently been reprinted.