Scarce Lawrence Green ‘Karoo’ Lot: 1955 First Edition & 1975 Reprint Duo (Protected DJs)
LOT DETAILS
- Category: Africana / South African Topography & Travel
- Author: GREEN, Lawrence G.
- Title: Karoo (Two-Volume Collector's Lot: 1955 First Edition & 1975 Reprint)
- Publisher: Howard Timmins, Cape Town
- Date Published: 1955 & 1975
DESCRIPTION
A highly desirable comparative pairing of Lawrence Green’s definitive work on the South African hinterland, charting the region's human and natural history. This lot comprises two distinct editions published by Howard Timmins, offering collectors an excellent opportunity to acquire both the true mid-century first print run and the subsequent scarce hardcover reprint.
Item 1: True First Edition (1955)
- Collation: Octavo (8vo). 248pp. Complete with frontispiece, photographic plates, maps, and index.
- Binding: Publisher's original hardcover boards.
- Condition: Very Good. The text block exhibits the natural, uniform age-related tanning and browning characteristic of the paper stock used by Timmins in the 1950s. The binding remains firm, tight, and square.
- Dust Jacket: Good to Very Good. Displays authentic age-related wear, light spotting, and very slight paper loss at the spine ends and corners. Now stabilized and protected from further deterioration by a removable, archival-grade clear plastic sleeve.
Item 2: Hardcover Reprint (1975)
- Collation: Octavo (8vo). Structural duplicate of the original text block layout.
- Binding: Publisher's original cloth boards.
- Condition: Very Good. Crisp, clean pages and robust binding. A neat, vintage ex-libris bookplate is affixed to the second leaf (preliminary page), adding a nice touch of provenance.
- Dust Jacket: Very Good. Extremely well-preserved with vibrant colours and minimal edge wear. Also housed in a protective, removable clear plastic sleeve.
BACKGROUND & SIGNIFICANCE
The Author & The Work
Lawrence George Green (1890–1972) was South Africa’s foremost chronicler of local lore, travel, and historical anecdotes. Karoo is widely considered one of his absolute masterpieces. In it, he beautifully captures the isolation, eccentric characters, ghost stories, and harsh beauty of the Great Karoo, the Little Karoo, Namaqualand, and the Far Northwest Cape.
The Publisher
Founded by Howard B. Timmins in Cape Town, the publishing house was instrumental in bringing mid-20th-century Africana to the masses. While Green's books were popular in their day, finding a 1955 first edition with its fragile original dust jacket intact is becoming increasingly difficult. Early Timmins jackets were prone to heavy chipping and tearing; finding an original jacket alongside its later 1975 reprint variant creates an excellent shelf presentation for the discerning collector of South African literature.
Condition Summary:
A Very Good comparative lot of two hardcovers in original dust jackets; the 1955 first edition shows natural page tanning with light wear and minor paper loss to the jacket, while the 1975 reprint features an ex-libris bookplate and a near-fine jacket, with both volumes now professionally stabilized in protective plastic sleeves.
