Scripta Africana (complete 11-vol limited edition)

The attractiveness of this series was recognised by the growth in the number of subscribers from about 350 at the start to the maximum of 1000 by the time the seventh volume appeared. The titles selected included two on the first Anglo-Boer War, two by foreign military observers, one by a former British Member of Parliament, and two new books.

The photographic coverage, including the use of the endpapers, is particularly good. Our complete leather-bound set - all with certificates for Number 278 - came from the estate of a founder subscriber and has been only lightly read, with some copies probably not opened. The first two volumes in the series came without slipcases and with no gilt edges. The subsequent volumes have both slipcases and top edges gilt.

In order of publication, the titles are as follows:

#1. May 1985. General de Wet's Three Years' War. Facsimile of Scribner's 1902 edition. #2. November 1985. Carter's Account of the [First] Boer War: its causes and results. Facsimile of third John Macqueen edition of 1900. #3. June 1986. Offical English translation by Colonels Waters and Du Cane of the German Official Account of the War in South Africa. Two parts in one volume; 18 maps bound separately. Facsimile of John Murray editions of 1904 and 1906. #4. June 1986. As told to H C Bedell and Piet Grobler. The Memoirs of Paul Kruger. Origination not stated. #5. December 1986. Brian Pottinger. The Foreign Volunteers. They Fought for the Boers, 1899-1902. Origination not stated. #6. April 1987. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Great Boer War. Origination not stated. #7. July 1987. Paul Butterfield. War and Peace in South Africa 1879-1881. A new book on the first Anglo-Boer, based on the letters and diaries of Philip Anstruther and Edward Essex. #8. October 1987. Howard C Hillegas. With the Boer Forces. Facsimile of Methuen's third illustrated edition of 1900. #9. December 1987. Captains Slocum and Reichmann. Boer War Operations in South Africa. Facsimile of U S Government Printing Office edition of 1901. #10. April 1988. Michael Davitt. The Boer Fight for Freedom. [Davitt, who resigned as a British Member of Parliament in protest against Britain's actions, came to South Africa as an observer of the war, and followed mainly General Philip Botha, to whose memory his book is dedicated.] Facsimile of third Funk and Wagnalls illustrated edition of 1902. #11. April 1989. Mario Lupini. Camillo Reichmann. Italian Boer War Hero. Newly written for the series.

A fine and complete set.