Jock of the Bushveld

Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1907. First edition: First impression. 475 pages, colour frontispiece, plates and marginal illustrations, dark green cloth with gilt titling and gilt vignette of Jock on the upper cover, light foxing on several pages, with the drawings of a dung beetle pushing his load with his front legs rather than his back legs on pages 65, 337 and 457 and Snowball the horse being dragged out of the river on page 316 - these drawings were changed in later impressions, a very good copy.

Fitzpatrick's adventures during this time of his life, when he was pioneering in the Bushveld, are vividly described in his book Jock of the Bushveld, which is generally accepted as a South African classic.

Rudyard Kipling, an intimate friend, used to take part in these story-telling evenings with the author's children and he it was who persuaded FitzPatrick to put the stories together in book form. Having done this, FitzPatrick searched for a suitable artist to illustrate the book and eventually came across Edmund Caldwell in London and brought him to South Africa to visit the Bushveld and make the drawings on the spot.