Best of Bosman - Herman Charles Bosman (Two Volume + Sleeve)

VOLUME 1:

STARLIGHT ON THE VELD

BEST OF HERMAN CHARLES BOSMANS STORIES

Selected by CRAIG MACKENZIE

When people ask me. as they often do how it is that I can tell the best sto-ries of anybody in the Transvaal (Oom Schalk Lourens said, modestly). then I explain to them that I just learn through observing the way that the world has with men and women. When I say this they nod their heads wisely, and say that they understand, and I nod my head wisely also, and that seems to satisfy them. But the thing I say to them is a lie, of course. For it is not the story that counts. What matters is the way you tell it. The important thing is to know just at what moment you must knock out your pipe on your veldskoen, and at what stage of the story you must start talking about the School Committee at Drogevlei. Another necessary thing is to know what part of the story to leave out.

VOLUME 2:

RECOGNISING BLUES

BEST OF HERMAN CHARLES BOSMANS HUMOUR

Selected by STEPHEN GRAY

A vein of humour is supposed to run through a good deal of my writing. I he worst thing about a joke is that it can as easily as not fall flat. It is also no novel experience for me to have people laughing themselves sick over something that Ive been genuinely in earnest about. The most insuperable handicap there is in life is For a person to have a sense of humour. Laughing when things go wrong! thats incorrect sequence. Its through laughing that things go wrong.