HILLINGDON HALL; OR, THE COCKNEY SQUIRE; A TALE OF COUNTRY LIFE. By The Author of "Handley Cross." by [Surtees, Robert Smith] - 1845

London: Henry Colburn, 1845. Three volumes. Original forest green cloth, decorated in blind, spines lettered in gilt, edges untrimmed. Bindings faintly spotted and edgeworn, toe of first spine badly snagged (2 cm, with no loss), some marginal smudges and such as consistent with editorial use, else a good, bright set, in half morocco slipcase. Ownership signature of Rebecca Lightup in each volume. A proof copy of the first English edition, occasionally marked "Author's Proof," but in fact an in-house set of sheets, marked up by a proof-reader, with corrections to spelling, punctuation, pagination, imperfect leading and more, on about 75 pages. This, the third of Surtees' popular sporting novels, features once again his most famous creation, the 'jolly, free-and-easy, fox-hunting grocer,' Jorrocks, who buys a manor and runs for Parliament. The novel, a satire on the Anti-Corn League, had been serialised in 1844 in the NEW SPORTING MAGAZINE, a publication Surtees had helped found, and also appeared in a New York edition in that year. Proof copies of Victorian three-deckers survive only infrequently. In this set, some gatherings are marked "R" as read, two noting more specifically "Read Sept. 22 F.W." A further gathering bears the head-note "M.W. Author's proof. read back." The changes in this gathering are more substantial than elsewhere, altering for example "an order was despatched" to "a messenger was despatched" (vol. II, p. 116), and modifying the spellings of the name "Tompkins" (p. 105). Though the hand is that of a proof-reader, it is most likely that it reflects authorial corrections made to another proof set. SADLEIR 3163.