Publisher's pocket-sized booklet with printed wraps.
64pp.
'This popular literature booklet published in Cape Town in 1899 follows the adventures of three South African students attending medical schools in Edinburgh, Scotland, and Germany.
While the cover credits "M. Hugeno" as the author this was actually a pseudonym used by Jacobus Francois Marais. Marais was a prominent figure who was serving as the Rector of the Boys' High School in Stellenbosch (later renamed Paul Roos Gimnasium) at the time of his tragic death at Rooi-Els in May 1901. To honour his contributions to the school, the institution established its first official school library later that same year (1901) and named it the Dr J.F. Marais Library, a name it still carries today.
The work represents a very early piece of South African popular fiction, capturing the late-19th-century pipeline of young South Africans traveling abroad to Europe to secure professional degrees in medicine. It affords historians a rare glimpse into the cultural perspective of the late-1800s Cape intellectual elite.' (Source: S2A3 Biographical Database of Southern African Science)
A scarce work. Only 2 copies recorded in the South African Bibliography.
- Binding Condition: Good
