Tant' Alie of Transvaal. Her diary 1880-1902. Translated from the Taal (1923)

This book, one of Emily Hobhouse's last and rarest, has not previously been listed on these auctions. It contains one of her most eloquent prefaces, with tributes to Lloyd George, Tant' Alie Badenhorst, who died in 1907, and Olive Schreiner, who described the manuscript as " . . . a revelation of human nature; I think it is wonderful" and promised to write the preface, but who also died before the book was published.

The forewords are by Tant' Alie's son and grandson.

"Translated" may give the wrong impression. Badenhorst's diary was not transcribed from its original state - "not easy to decipher" and when the translation was completed "the European War was almost upon us" and the book "had to be laid aside". Hobhouse was helped by many, including Deneys Reitz, "with words no dictionary registers".

The author describes the writer of the diary, whom she met in 1902, as having a "fragrance of holiness". Hobhouse knew all the people and many of the places in the diary, so could vouch for its accuracy.

She had decided to translate and publish the diary because Tant' Alie " . . . much wished [that it] should be published for [her and other] children's children, desirous that future generations should know and avoid the cruelty of war".

The green cloth-boards, gilt lettered to the spine and blind ruled to the front, are moderately rubbed. The binding is tight The front endpapers have a bookseller sticker on the paste-down and Pieter Erasmus's attractive ex-libris label on the front free leaf, while on the back paste-down is a small library rubber stamp.

The contents - 320 pp of prelims, text and epilogue - are unmarked and undiscoloured, making this a collectable copy.