Soapy Sponge is a masterpiece of comic characterization.Surtees’wry humour and enormous capacity for comic irony are put to supreme effect. The peregrinations of Soapy Sponge as he ruthlessly pursues his passion for fox-hunting at the expense of others in Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour bring him into contact with a Dickensian gallery of acutely observed characters, from Dukes to hard-bitten horse-copers. The absurdity of Soapy's escapades is caught with relish, for Surtees is ever aware of the incongruities of human character and behaviour. His adroit rendering of country dialect vitalizes the novel and,together with his perceptive social observations, makes him the unrivalled master of this peculiarly English genre of the sporting novel. Molly Keane claims that Surtees writes of 'an England for all time'.

Surtees had written three novels before the publication of Mr Sponge"s Sporting Tour in 1853 brought him fame which reflected retrospectively on his earlier works. The doings of his great sporting character Jorrocks had been chronicled in the New Sporting Magazine, which Suttees had edited for five years, and had eventually appeared as a novel entitled Torrocks"Taunts and Tollities in 1838. The success of the Jorrocks sketches had prompted publishers Chapman and Hall to suggest to Dickens that he might try his hand at the same sort of thing, and so Pickwick Papers evolved. There is a marked resemblance between Surtees"s humour, dialect and vivid caricatures and the early work of Dickens, but Surtees confined himself to the world he knew best, and developed the peculiarly English taste for the sporting novel. All eight of his books are concemed with characteristic elements of English fox-hunting society……

Our Hero

Mr Benjamin Buckram

Peter Leather

Laverick Wells

Mr Waffles

To Laverick Wells

Our Hero Arrives at Laverick Wells

Old Tom Towler

The Meet

The Find and the Finish

The Feeler

The Deal and the Disaster

An Old Friend

A New Scbeme

Tawleyford Court

The Tawleyford Establisbment

The Dinner

The Evening"s Reflections

The Wet Day

The F. H. H.

A Country Dinner-Party

The F. H. H. Again

The Great Run

Lord Scamperdale at Home

Mr Spraggon"s Embassy

Mr Spraggon at Tawleyford Court

Mr and Mrs Spring"wheat

The Finest Run That Ever Was Seen!

The Faithful Groom

The Crossroads at DaUington Burn

Bolting the Badger

Mr Puffington; or The Young Man About Town

A Swell Huntsman

Lord Scamperdale at Jawleyford Court

Mr Puffington"s Domestic Arrangements

A Day with Puffington"s Hounds

Writing a Run

A Literary Bloomer

A Dinner and a Deal

The Morning"s Reflections

Wanted- A Rich Godpapa!

The Discomfited Diplomat

Puddingpote Bower, the Seat of Togglebury Crowdy, Esq.

A Family Breakfast on a Hunting Morning

Hunting the Hounds

Country Quarters

Sir Harry Scattercash"s Hounds

Farmer Peastraw"s Dine-Matinee

Puddingpote Bower

The Trigger

Nonsuch House Again

The Debate

Facey Romford at Home

Nonsuch House Again

The Rising Generation

The Kennel and the Stud

The Hunt

Mr Sponge at Home

How the Grand Aristocrat Came Off

How Other Things Came Off