Antiquarian Auctions

Auction #129 begins on 26 Feb 2026

Ellenberger (D.Fred) (Compiler) and MacGregor (J.C.) (Translator)

HISTORY OF THE BASUTO, ANCIENT AND MODERN

Published: Caxton Publishing Company, London, 1912

Edition: First

Reserve: $50

Approximately:

Estimate: $100

Bidding opens: 26 Feb 16:30 GMT

Bidding closes: 5 Mar 16:30 GMT

Ships from: South Africa

Lot 261 preview

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Prelims xxii + 396pp, frontispiece, fold-out map, fold-out genealogical table of tribal chiefs. Original blue ribbed cloth with gilt titleing to the spine. The top of the spine and the corners of the covers are worn. There is light foxing, particularly to the end papers and one chapter - the chapter on Bushmen - has some underlining. The pages have tanned. 

Compiled by D. Fred. Ellenberger, V.D.M. in French at the request of the Commissioner of Basutoland H. C. Sloley. Translated into English by J. C. MacGregor, Assistant Commissioner. It was published under the Auspices of the Basutoland Government

"History of the Basuto, Ancient and Modern", compiled by the French missionary David-Frédéric Ellenberger during the second half of the nineteenth century, remains the seminal ethnohistory of the people who today constitute the population of Lesotho. In 2015 the full Ellenberger Archive consisting of approximately 1,500 original documents, which were used to write this book, was digitised by the Endangered Archives Programme in partnership with the University of The Witwatersrand.

Ellenberger began collecting the materials in his archive in 1866 and gathered oral histories and genealogies until 1905. Thanks to bequests from Ellenberger and his descendants, Morija Museum and Archives (MMA, Lesotho) possesses the complete archive of History, reflecting the total process of assembling, editing and publishing this work. This archive offers a rare window onto nineteenth-century Lesotho and colonial knowledge networks. The testimonies that Ellenberger recorded, detail nineteenth-century Basotho traditions and sensibilities, and how these were changing throughout the colonial period.

Source: https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP845

  • Binding Condition: Good
  • Overall Condition: Fair
  • Size: 230 x 160 mm


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