THE K****S ILLUSTRATED

First Edition: frontispiece portrait of Angas on India proof paper and mounted, 35 hand-coloured lithographed plates on 30 sheets after Angas, illustrations in the text, restored and bound  by Sangorski & Sutcliffe in half dark green Morocco with matching buckram cloth sides, top edge gilt.

The plates are clean and bright with the following faults: The frontispiece has been repaired in the fore margin not affecting the printed area and with a light stain along the right hand side. Text page vii repaired in the fore margin. Plate I. Cape Town from the Camps Bay Road, has split from the binding at the top and is damaged not affecting the printed area. Plate VI. The Paarl, trimmed and laid down on new card with repairs at the edges. Plate X. Bavians Kloof (The Glen of Baboons) Genandendal, trimmed and laid down on new card, tears and the edges repaired. Text page 27 laid down and with repairs at the edges. Plate XII. Panda Reviewing His Soldiers at Nonduengu, tears along the top margin repaired and with a pencil annotation in the margin. Plate 18. Mouth of the Umvoti River, trimmed and laid down on new card with small tears in the margins. Plate 25. Inanda Kraal, Natal, repaired tear in the right hand margin. Plate 30. New and remarkable species if lepidoptera, from Natal and the Zulu country, stained along the inside margin affecting six of the illustrations, plate trimmed and laid down on new card with tears in the margins repaired and a with new paper guard.

Mendelssohn (Sidney) South African Bibliography, volume I, page 45, Coloured views of South African scenes, together with sketches of the natives, towns, &c. &c. There are thirty illustrations, and eleven wood engravings, with descriptive letterpress, also a chapter entitled “General Remarks on the Races inhabiting Southern Africa." The coloured plates & illustrations are all coloured, with the exception of the frontispiece. The wood engravings are in the letterpress. The volume is dedicated to Major-General Sir Harry Smith, Governor and High Commissioner at the Cape of Good Hope.

Abbey (J.R.) Travel in Aquatint and Lithography 1770 - 1860, Volume I, pages 291/3. 

S2A3 Biographical Database of Southern African Science (https://www.s2a3.org.za/bio/Biograph_final.php?serial=78)

Angas, Mr George French (mammalogy, anthropology)

Born: 25 April 1822, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, United Kingdom.

Died: 8 October 1886, London, United Kingdom.

'George French Angas, British artist and zoologist, moved with his parents to Dawlish, Devon, where he developed an early interest in conchology and a talent for drawing. He was employed in a business in London but, having studied as a natural history artist, decided to travel and support himself by drawing. For about eight years as a young adult he travelled to various countries, making numerous drawings, and publishing several books. His first journey took him to the Mediterranean in 1841, and was followed by his first illustrated book A ramble in Malta and Sicily in the autumn of 1841 (London, 1842). In September 1843 he left for South Australia. From there he proceeded to New Zealand, where he covered some 1300 km of foot. Back in South Australia he accompanied Sir George Grey (who later became governor of the Cape Colony) on an expedition into the interior in 1845, making water colour illustrations of the scenery, aborigines, plants and animals. His illustrations of South Australia and New Zealand, and an account of his travels in these countries, were published in Savage life in Australia and New Zealand (1847, 2 vols), South Australia illustrated (1849), and The New Zealanders illustrated (1849).

'Angas next travelled to South Africa. He arrived at the Cape before or in February 1847 and spent several months in the Colony during which he is known to have visited Genadendal, Paarl and Somerset West. Later the same year he travelled to Durban, probably by sea. At the end of August 1847 he travelled northward through KwaZulu-Natal and received a friendly reception from the Zulu King Mpande. He made drawings of Zulu subjects, and also kept a journal. At the most northerly point of his journey, at St Lucia Bay, he named a new antelope, the nyala, Tragelaphus angassi in honour of his father, George Fife Angas. Returning to England in 1848, he published his illustrations under the title The Kafirs illustrated in a series of drawings taken among the Amazulu, Amaponda, and Amakosa tribes; also, portraits of the Hottentot, Malay, Fingo, and other races inhabiting Southern Africa: together with sketches of landscape scenery in the Zulu country, Natal, and the Cape Colony (London, 1849).

'After his return to England, in 1849, Angas married Alice Mary Moran, with whom he had four daughters. That same year he served as naturalist to the Turko-Persian Boundary Commission, but was invalided home. He went to South Australia again later in 1849 and settled in Sydney, where he was director and secretary of the Australian Museum from 1853 to 1860. He returned to England in 1862 and during the next decade published about 20 papers on the shells of Australia and the western Pacific, particularly those of Port Jackson in New South Wales, mainly in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. He also wrote Australia; a popular account of its physical features, inhabitants, natural history and productions (London, 1865) and Polynesia; a popular account of the physical features, inhabitants, natural history and productions of the islands of the Pacific (London, 1866). He was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1866 and was also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and of the Zoological Society of London.'

'Tooley (R.V.) Enlish Books with Coloured Plates 1790 to 1860,pages 72/3, 'The three large works by George French Angas, The Kaffirs Illustrated, The New Zealanders Illustrated and South Australia Illustrated, are amongst the most important of the illustrated travel books of their period. Of the three works, The Kaffirs Illustrated is the most uncommon.'

Tregenza (John) George French Angas, Artist, Traveller and Naturalist 1822 - 1886, Published by the Art Gallery Board of South Australia, 1980.