JOCK OF THE BUSHVELD (Signed by the author)

Illustrated by E.Caldwell

Eighth impression: xv, 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 mainly on the page edges, with the drawings of a dung beetle pushing his load with his front legs rather than his back legs on pages 337 and 457 and Snowball the horse being dragged out of the river on page 316 - these drawings were changed in later impressions, the spine is starting to fray at the top, the corners are slightly bumped, a good copy.

Signed on the title page by J Percy Fitzpatrick. Sir James Percy Fitzpatrick was known as Sir Percy Fitzpatrick

The dedication on a front free end paper reads: It was the youngest of the High Authorities who gravely informed the Inquiring Stranger that “Jock belongs to the Likkle People!” That being so, it is clearly the duty, no less less that the privilege, of the mere Narrator to dedicate the Story of Jock to those Keenest and Kindest critics, Best of Friends, and Most Delightful of Comrades The Likkle People

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