Surtees' work has continued to be read long after some of his more popular contemporaries have been forgotten. Gash notes that George Whyte-Melville's hunting novels were far better selling in their day than Surtees's but are now no longer read and appear sanitised in comparison. Gash concludes by writing that: Surtees's range was limited, his style often clumsy and colloquial. Even in the better-constructed novels the plots are loose and discursive. Nevertheless, his sharp, authentic descriptions of the hunting field have retained their popularity among fox-hunters.... Among a wider public his mordant observations on men, women, and manners; his entertaining array of eccentrics, rakes, and rogues; his skill in the construction of lively dialogue (a matter over which he took great pains); his happy genius for unforgettable and quotable phrases; and above all, his supreme comic masterpiece, Jorrocks, have won him successive generations of devoted followers. Although his proper place among Victorian novelists is not easy to determine, his power as a creative artist was recognized, among professional writers, by Thackeray, Kipling, Arnold Bennett, and Siegfried Sassoon, and earned the tributes of laymen as distinguished and diverse as William Morris, Lord Rosebery, and Theodore Roosevelt. There is a statue of Jorrocks by John Mills outside 96 George Street, Croydon, London. A musical based on his works entitled Jorrocks with music and lyrics by David Heneker received a West End run in 1966. R. S. Surtees Society The R. S. Surtees Society was founded in 1979 and holds an annual dinner in London. Its stated objectives are: To promote the works of R. S. Surtees, to maintain his reputation as an author and to stimulate interest in his literary merits. To republish the works of R. S. Surtees as and when the Executive Committee considers necessary and is satisfied that demand exists; and to publish or republish any biographical or appreciative material about R.S. Surtees. To arrange such meetings and events as in the opinion of the Committee will achieve the above object; and If, in the opinion of the Committee, it is considered advisable to raise funds to achieve the above objects, to publish or republish works by other authors, or prints by artists, or other items of a literary artistic association. Major works Fiction Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities (1838) Handley Cross (1843) Hillingdon Hall (1845) Hawbuck Grange (1847) Mr Sponge's Sporting Tour (1853) Ask Mamma (1858) Plain or Ringlets