THE PETTICOAT COMMANDO - OR BOER WOMEN IN SECRET SERVICE - INSCRIBED COPY

The first edition in English of this title, published in Afrikaans the same year as Die Kappie Kommando, of Boerevrouwen in Geheime Dienst. Mills & Boon. 1913. 8vo. 376 pages with 32 pages of advertisements at the rear.  Foreword by Patrick Duncan. Illustrated. A fine presentation copy with a nice inscription by the author to “Dear Mr Boonzaier”, dated Johannesburg, Aug. 10th. 1913. It is not unreasonable to speculate that this might have been D.C. Boonzaier, the cartoonist and father of artist Gregoire, but I am unable to confirm this.

Apart from minor spotting of the edges,  a near fine copy in the original decorated beige cloth. From the library of bibliophile and South African bookplate collector and expert Percival Bishop with his ex-libris on the front pastedown.

Johanna Brandt (1876 - 1964) was a South African propagandist of Afrikaner nationalism, spy during the Boer War, prophet and writer on controversial health subjects. After the war she wrote her own account of the Irene Concentration Camp, but her most well-known book was The Petticoat Commando, which told of her and her mother's exploits during the Boer War. The book is dedicated to her mother, "As a peace offering for having brought her into publicity in direct opposition to her wishes”. Together with Winston Churchill, Sol Plaatje and Arthur Conan Doyle, Brandt appears on a series of stamps issued by the South African Post Office in the year 2000, featuring writers of the Boer War. A lovely copy with a nice inscription and an interesting provenance.