Antique Victorian Book Ornate Gilded Fancy Mr. Romford’s Hounds w Color Plates For Sale

Illustrated by John Leech & H. K. Browne (“Phiz”)
Bradbury, Agnew & Co., London — Subscription Edition, ca. 1880s

A stunningly preserved Subscription Edition of R. S. Surtees’s classic hunting satire, Mr. Romford’s Hounds, brilliantly illustrated by the legendary John Leech and H. K. Browne (“Phiz”), both famed for their collaborations with Charles Dickens. This edition, published by Bradbury, Agnew & Co., was printed from the original 1860s plates and issued in the late Victorian period for subscribers—retaining the rich humor, period character, and striking color engravings that defined the golden age of English sporting illustration.

Bound in deep scarlet red pictorial cloth, beautifully embossed in gilt and black, depicting a stout huntsman on horseback surrounded by eager hounds, with fox and whip motifs racing along the borders. The gilt titling gleams against the fine-grained cloth, while the black-ink vignettes provide strong visual contrast—one of the most decorative bindings of the period.

• Publisher: Bradbury, Agnew & Co., 8–10 Bouverie St., London

• Edition: Subscription Edition (printed from original plates)

• Date: ca. 1880s

• Format: Octavo (approx. 8¾ × 6 × 1½ in / 22 × 15 × 4 cm)

• Pagination: xvi, ~260 pp

• Illustrations:

  • Hand-colored frontispiece and title vignette

  • Numerous line engravings by John Leech and “Phiz” throughout text

• Binding: Original red pictorial cloth with gilt and black decoration

• Condition:

  • Bright, unfaded cloth with sharp gilt

  • Sound binding, clean hinges

  • Cream-toned pages, no foxing or tears

  • Color plates vibrant, tissue guards intact

A particularly clean and attractive copy—among the best examples of this decorative Subscription issue to surface in recent years.

Mr. Romford’s Hounds (1864–65) was the final novel by Robert Smith Surtees (1805–1864), England’s great chronicler of hunting life and author of Handley Cross and Mr. Sponge’s Sporting Tour. Surtees’s tales immortalized the bluff, boastful, and comically self-satisfied men who peopled the fox-hunting fields of mid-19th century England. His writing blends sly humor, vivid dialect, and social commentary, often lampooning both the pretensions of the gentry and the follies of “the sporting set.”

This installment follows Mr. Facey Romford, a cunning, self-made sportsman of “very comfortable means, and very elastic conscience,” who inherits the Heavyside hounds and sets about running them in his own colorful fashion. Along the way, Surtees delivers his trademark mixture of satire, rural dialogue, and riotous misadventure—all enlivened by the witty and energetic drawings of Leech and Phiz.

“Mr. Facey Romford was a man who could make himself very agreeable—when he had a mind.”
With this wry opening line, Surtees sets the tone for a comedy of manners steeped in bluster, charm, and scheming.

“A good hound is like a good woman—fond of home, faithful to her master, and steady when she’s wanted.”
A typical Surtees aphorism—equal parts rustic wisdom and sly humor.

“‘If money can’t buy happiness,’ said Mr. Romford, ‘it can at least buy a pack of hounds and a tolerable good dinner, and that’s more than many a philosopher can show for his philosophy!’”
The author’s knack for deflating moral pretension with rural wit remains timeless.

“He was not one to let conscience interfere with convenience; indeed, conscience was to him as a walking-stick—useful when he had a rough road, and easily laid aside when the path was smooth.”
A brilliant, biting character study of Surtees’s anti-hero.

“The red coats gleamed like poppies in a field, and the cry of the hounds was music that stirred the very marrow.”
Leech’s accompanying illustration captures this vivid moment, full of energy and English landscape detail.

These excerpts epitomize Surtees’s combination of social satire, hunting lore, and vernacular charm—a genre that prefigured later English humorists from Jerome K. Jerome to P. G. Wodehouse.

The hand-colored frontispiece and title vignette (by John Leech) show a lively hunting scene in brilliant tones of red and ochre, guarded by their original tissue sheets. Throughout the volume, line engravings by both Leech and Phiz illustrate key episodes—the hounds in full cry, the comic social gatherings, and the eccentricities of country life.

Each plate is sharply struck and crisply printed, the artistry as expressive as the text itself.

After John Leech’s death in 1864, the remainder of Mr. Romford’s Hounds was illustrated by H. K. Browne, who had famously drawn Dickens’s David Copperfield and Bleak House. Together, their combined styles—Leech’s lively caricature and Phiz’s confident line—make this one of the most visually engaging Victorian novels ever issued.

Bradbury & Agnew, successors to Punch magazine’s publishing arm, capitalized on the continuing popularity of Surtees by reissuing his works in these luxurious Subscription Editions for readers and collectors, typically without dates but circa 1875–1895.

Surtees’s works are central to the English sporting tradition, prized for their humor, dialect, and snapshot of Victorian leisure culture. This Subscription Edition combines historical charm with genuine artistic merit—its decorative cloth binding, gold blocking, and fine Leech illustrations make it a highly desirable collectible.

A brilliantly preserved Victorian illustrated edition of R. S. Surtees’s Mr. Romford’s Hounds—a rollicking satire of rural England and fox-hunting society, beautifully bound in gilt and scarlet.

With hand-colored plates, rich humor, and illustrations by two of the 19th century’s greatest artists, this edition stands as both a literary and visual treasure of the Victorian era.