The Cape in Mid-Eighteenth Century. Being the Biography of Rudolph Siegfried Allemann 1692-1762 (association copy)

• One hundred years old this year, this special edition was published by arrangement with the Van Riebeeck Society, which was formed in the previous year, with its second volume being its own original Mentzel edition

This main interest of this copy is its pen dedication by an unidentified writer "With kind regards and best wishes for Xmas 1920 to Mrs Cecil Boyle". There is nothing in the copy to show how it passed from Mrs Boyle directly or indirectly to the present seller. Mrs Boyle, who [Wikipedia] was still alive in 1940, was the widow of Cecil William Boyle (born 1853). Boyle played rugby and cricket for Oxford University and cricket for England. He was a lieutenant and later a captain in the Oxfordshire Hussars and was photographed in a regiment group of officers with Edward VII on 12 May 1897, soon after Edward became King [National Portrait Gallery]. In February 1900 Boyle was appointed a lieutenant in the Imperial Yeomanry for service in South Africa, and he took a string of 30 of his own horses with him [Wikipedia]. He was, however, one of the first members of the Imperial Yeomanry to die in the war, being killed near Boshof in the Orange Free State on 5 April 1900, leaving his widow and three children

Red cloth-boards with gilt design and lettering to the upper panel and black lettering on a white spine label, plain endpapers with the dedication referred to above on the front free endpaper, inserted frontispiece on art paper, and 170 pp of prelims, text in 17 chapters, and two appendixes

• The notes are by the translator - Margaret Greenlees, lecturer in English language, University of Cape Town - and Kathleen M Jeffries of the Cape Archives

• This very good copy overall is complete - with tight binding and no spine cracking; the endpapers are lightly sunned; the copy is unmarked apart from the dedication referred to and undiscoloured; the spine label is cracked (see image); and the text pages are untrimmed (see images)