MAGNATES AND MANSIONS - JOHANNESBURG 1886-1914

Publisher's hardcover binding with illustrated dust jacket.

162pp. Illustrated.

Binding sound. Contents clean. Former owner's name on front endpaper "P. K. Digby, 19/12/1985". Peter Digby was a collector of antiquarian Africana, primarily militaria, and also an advisor on collectible books for some of South Africa's leading auction houses. Included is the original invoice for the sale of this book to Mr. Digby from Thorold's Africana, Johannesburg, as well as an original loosely inserted order card for this title.

'Despite its broken warehouses and cluttered image today, Doornfontein was the first affluent suburb of Johannesburg, and Saratoga its tree-lined avenue. Here was Clyfton House, the Henry Nourse home, John Dale Lace's elegant Norman House, and The Turrets, where Sir George Albu lived. Nearby in Beit street the domed Bettelheim House was built, home of the debonair 'Beetles' Bettelheim, the Turkish Consul. Gradually, as the mining camp grew into a town, the rich created splendid new suburbs - Bertrams, Jeppestown, Belgravia, Parktown.

Magnates and Mansions opens the doors of some of the old homes and gives us a fascinating glimpse into the vanished lifestyle of grandeur and opulence which the mining magnates enjoyed. These ornate and often ostentatious homes were testaments to their wealth and social standing.

Filled with amusing anecdotes and cameo sketches, the text is complemented by photographs and Margaret Barry's exquisite illustrations of some of the homes, many of which have been demolished. This is indeed a piece of lost Johannesburg and a book to treasure.' - editor's note