THE LADYSMITH LYRE

4 individual copies - each on a4 sheet published on both sides with a humorous hand drawn sketch stapled to the front of each copy, light foxing, a complete set.

Two Newspapers were published during the siege, the "Lyre and Bombshell" started by enterprising journalists for the amusement and edification of the besieged. The Ladysmith Lyre of which the responsible editor was the late Mr. G. W. Steevens, was also a great credit to those who produced it, being most humorous, and containing excellent cartoons. The monotony was also relieved by the organisation of cricket and football matches as well as polo; and it often looked absurdly ridiculous to see the indifference with which the players and spectators treated the passing shells, some of which would burst within the limits of the "field". https://www.angloboerwar.com/books/46-stott-the-boer-invasion-of-natal/1048-stott-chapter-ix-the-siege-of-ladysmith

George Warrington "G. W." Steevens (10 December 1869 - 15 January 1900) was a British journalist and writer. He was appointed by the Daily Mail as war correspondent to South Africa during the Second Boer War in 1899. Caught in the siege of Ladysmith, he kept up morale during the early months with his mordant witticisms appearing in Ladysmith Lyre (e.g. "a strange sideway out of Ladysmith" for death by disease or starvation).[3] He died of enteric fever (now more commonly known as typhoid) on 15 January 1900, six weeks before the Natal Field Army of Redvers Buller relieved Ladysmith. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._W._Steevens