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Surtees, Robert Smith 1803-64
English journalist and novelist

Born in Durham, where he was educated, he practised as a lawyer and later became a Justice of the Peace and High Sheriff of Durham County. He founded the New Sporting Magazine in 1831 where he introduced John Jorrocks, a sporting Cockney, whose adventures were later contained in Jorrocks's Jaunts and Jollities (1838, illustrated by H K Browne) and in Hillingdon Hall (1845). Their influence on Dickens's Pickwick Papers is conspicuous. His other great character, Mr Soapy Sponge, appears in Mr Sponge's Sporting Tour (1853, illustrated by John Leech), by which time he was combining his passion for sport with his literary work.

Bibliography: F Watson, Robert Smith Surtees, a critical study (1933)