JOCK OF THE BUSHVELD (signed by the author)

xv, 474 pages, [23] leaves of plates: illustrations, colour portrait as frontispiece, with tissue guard. Pictorial cloth with gilding. Lower corners slightly bumped. New endpapers and the book now protected by an archival polyester dust-jacket (Reflected in cover image). Careful repairs to edges of two pages. Some spotting to page edges. A tight copy of this South African classic. 

Signed by FitzPatrick on title page.

True first edition, with margin illustration on pages 65, 337 and 457 of a confused dung beetle rolling its prize away using its front legs, contrary to the habit of its species! Later editions also carried other small alterations to Caldwell's work.

James Percy FitzPatrick was born in King William's Town on 24 July 1862 where his father was a judge in the High Court of Kaffraria. Shortly afterwards the family moved to Cape Town where Judge FitzPatrick served on the Bench of the Cape Supreme Court. The family lived in a large home in Plumstead, Timour Hall. Young Percy befriended the nearby Cloete children, spending his early years roaming and exploring in the wild Constantia mountains. He was educated locally and in the United Kingdom before returning to the Cape and finishing his education at St. Aiden’s College, Grahamstown. 

In 1880 Percy sat, but failed, examinations to enter university and in the same year his father slipped and fell on a building site and passed away from complications from the injuries sustained. He was one year away from retirement and thus his family received no pension. Percy had to begin work immediately to support the family and joined the Standard Bank in Cape Town. He did not enjoy the work and by 1885 was employed as a transport rider between Lourenco Marques and the gold diggings at Pilgrims Rest and Graskop.

It was near Pilgrims Rest that FitzPatrick took ownership of a puppy born to "Jess", owned by Ted Sivewright. The sixth puppy was a "rat" and "half the size" of the other puppies. The other drivers encouraged Sivewright to drown this puppy so as not to spoil the "thoroughbred" litter and diminish the value of the other puppies. FitzPatrick however was moved by his plight and took the puppy who was initially known as "Fitz's Dog" and then as "Jock". 

FitzPatrick’s first book was The Outspan (1897) and he followed it with the hugely successful The Transvaal from within (1899).  After the South African War FitzPatrick became financially successful (at one stage he was Chairman of the Chamber of Mines) and an influential politician (a member of the Transvaal Legislative Council) and he was knighted in 1902 (created K.C.M.G. in 1910). His friend Rudyard Kipling listened to his tales of his early travels and encouraged him to pen a book about them. In 1904 FitzPatrick became ill and during his convalescence in a nursing home, wrote Jock of the Bushveld. FitzPatrick made an inspired choice when he employed Edmund Caldwell to do the illustrations. The book was published in late 1907 and Longmans had to reprint three times by the end of November of that year. It has been reprinted many times since and translated into many different languages.

Of all the reviews and letters of thanks and congratulations FitzPatrick received, the ones he valued the most were from children who had enjoyed the book. Even President Theodore Roosevelt sent him a message: "Tell the author it's the best and truest story of a dog I have ever read and I have read them all." (AP Cartwright The First South African, p. 156).

When FitzPatrick moved to Johannesburg in 1891 to take up a job with a mining house he left the now deaf Jock in Barberton (Jock had been kicked by a kudu and it had badly affected his eardrums). Jock then stayed with Tom Barnett and it was at Barnett's trading store at Old Passene in Portuguese East Africa that Jock met his sad and untimely end.(AP Cartwright The First South African, p.43-44).

After an eventful life, FitzPatrick died on 24 January 1931 and was buried on his farm, Amanzi, in the eastern Cape. 

This book is being sold on behalf of Help the Rural Child charity in Cape Town. See www.goedgedacht.org/help-the-rural-child