ENGLISH READING BOOK FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS IN BASUTOLAND (1877)

Publisher's original black canvas binding.

94pp. Errata slip tipped-in on title page.

This is an extremely scarce publication from the Morija Mission Press in Basutoland. The South African Bibliography (SABIB) records a single copy, located in the South African Library, Cape Town. A search on worldcat.org indicates that in the 45 years since the publication of the SABIB, not another copy has been entered into the holdings of any of the world's libraries.

In 1860 Adolphe Mabille, missionary of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society, arrived in Basutoland (Lesotho) and was assigned to Morija. The official mission press was transferred from Matatise to Morija in 1874. Imprints from this press vary up to 1908, with most imprints from the 1870's having name of place only, in this case "Printed at Morija". 

This appears to be the second title in English that was printed on the press at Morija. The first one was a Sesuto-English vocabulary by Adolphe Mabille, published the previous year (1876). The name of the author of this "reading book" is not indicated but was likely Mabille once again, or maybe Edouard Jacottet, the only other person recorded as a contributor to the publications from this press in the late 1800's.