JOCK OF THE BUSHVELD

First edition, First impression: 475 pages, colour frontispiece, plates and marginal illustrations, original dark green cloth with gilt titling and gilt vignette of Jock on the upper cover, 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.

5000 copies of the first impression were printed at a total cost to Longmans of £416. 7s. 11d.

‘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.

‘In the early 1900's he used to recount the adventures of his dog Jock (a Staffordshire Bull terrier cross), in the form of bedtime stories to his four children, Nugent, Alan, Oliver, and Cecily, to whom the book was dedicated - the likkle people.

‘Rudyard Kipling, an intimate friend, used to take part in these story-telling evenings 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.

‘The book, which appeared in 1907 for the first time, was an immediate and overwhelming success, being reprinted four times in that year.’ (http://www.krugerpark.co.za/sir-percy-fitzpatrick-kruger-national-park.html)