VOOLSLAG Volume I, Numbers 1 & 2

First Editions: 64 & 68 pages, 4 plates, original paper wrappers - the overlapping wrappers of number I are frayed, otherwise very good copies.

The literary journal Voorslag was produced in mid-1926, near Durban, by the then youthful Roy Campbell, William Plomer and Laurens van der Post, all of whom were subsequently to establish themselves among South Africa's most prominent writers. Disagreements between Campbell and the sponsors of Voorslag soon led to the resignation of the young authors; but not before the first two issues, under their editorship, had provoked immediate controversy in artistic and journalistic circles.

Having burst upon the literary scene, in South Africa and Britain, with the flamboyant poem The Flaming Terrapin (1922) and with Turbott Wolfe (1925) - a hard-hitting novel on the 'colour question' - Campbell and Plomer respectively set out to attack the cultural philistinism and socio-political conservatism of the 'bovine citizenry' of South Africa. In bitter retaliation, leading newspapers in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban castigated the young editors for their presumptuousness. Almost overnight Voorslag (the title meaning 'whiplash') achieved near-legendary status, alike among its champions and detractors; yet copies of the journal are today virtually non-existent. From the reprint edition of numbers 1-3 published in 1985 by Natal University Press, edited by Colin Gardner and Michael Chapman.