Southern Africa's Beautiful Deserts. The Big Picture

Collectors' Edition, limited to 100 numbered copies, signed by all five authors.  

4to; brown half morocco with marbled boards; spine tooled in compartments, with gilt-on-green lettering piece to second compartment; cloth-sided slipcase, with marbled edges and pictorial onlay to centre of upper board; pp. 208; lavishly illustrated in full colour with the Van den Bergs' celebrated photographs; map.  Fine condition.  A remarkable production, the collectors' edition produced to the very highest standards of craftsmanship.  

"Life on Earth cannot exist without water, yet deserts abound with life.  An astonishing diversity of animals and plants have evolved extraordinary and often bizarre ways of surviving in the desert.  Where rainfall is scarce and erratic, these organisms cannot always rely on it for biological events, such as breeding, and have had to adapt in other ways.  The region designated in this book as 'desert' includes the Namib, the Succulent Karoo, the Nama Karoo and the Arid Savanna.  The last-mentioned is also called the Kalahari and is the more arid part of southern African savanna, covering about 46% of southern Africa."