A Pioneer looks Back

First edition (pp. 248, index). J. B. Taylor’s copy with his bookplate "James B. Taylor/ Lyne Grove" (Surrey), also with the apparently contemporary signature of "S. F. Silberbauer" on the ffep. Large octavo (24 cm) in brown publisher's cloth, gilt titles; with frontispiece and twenty-five illustrations from photographs or drawings.

J. B. Taylor, one of the Rand Lords, had a hand in the development of the South African diamond and gold resources in the last twenty years of the nineteenth century, notably at Kimberley, and was a familiar of Rhodes, Beit, and other imperial industrialists. Taylor may well have owned more than one copy of his book (as some writer's do) and this copy may have been a present to Silberbauer. In any event it was last sold in the latter part of 1952 at Port Elizabeth by the Frankels, long-established antiquarian dealers in Africana. Covers a bit sun-faded, first and last few pages with a bit of light foxing; otherwise tight and clean. A singular copy.