The Diary of Adam Tas 1705-1706 (Dutch and English). With an enquiry into the complaints of the Colonists against the Governor, Willem Adriaan van der Stel (1914)

Adam Tas's original diary is lost, but two partial copies exist. The first of these, which had been in the Government Archives in the Hague since 1706, covered the two months from 13 June to 14 August 1705. The second copy, which was found in Cape Town only three years before Fouche's book was published, included a duplication of most of the Hague MS as well as most of December 1705 and January and February 1706.

The Trustees of the South African Library, where the second copy was found, commissioned Professor Fouche to prepare an edition of the diary for the press. They agreed that a discussion of the troubles and disputes in which Tas was involved should also appear; this material, though included as an appendix, was longer than the transcript of the diary.

In his Preface, Fouche notes: "It was the wish of the Trustees that the edition should include an English translation of the Diary, in the interests of those to whom the original must otherwise have remained a sealed book." The translator of the diary, as well as the introduction and appendix, was Professor Patterson, a colleague of Fouche's at the Transvaal University College, Pretoria.

It says much for the quality of Fouche's and Patterson's work and the speed with which the job was completed - when every communication and proof had to travel by train or ship - that the editing, translation, printing and publishing was completed in less than three years, with the South African Library a thousand miles from the editor, and the printer and publisher another seven thousand miles away. All involved contributed to a great book on an inspiring chapter in the history of the Cape, when the power of Adam Tas's pen - he was imprisoned for 13 months before being vindicated - led to the toppling of Willem Adriaan van der Stel.

So important a part of early South African history was Tas's diary considered that the Van Riebeeck Society selected it in 1970 to inaugurate its second series, when it was newly edited and translated.

Red cloth-boards, blind embossed to the upper panel and gilt lettered to the spine; plain maroon endpapers; xlvii + 366 pp of introduction, text and index; Dutch on the left, English on the right; and two maps - a monochrome map as the frontispiece and a two-colour folding relief map at the back.

The spine of this copy is lightly sunned and the top edges are soft. "Paarl Gymnasium" is gilt embossed on the upper panel and the remains of a Gymnasium label are on the front free endpaper. The binding is tight. The top page edge is foxed and there is a small brown stain near the front of the bottom page edge. With no other defects, this remains a handsome copy of a valuable book.