Johannes Meintjes. DE LA REY - Lion of the West.

Hugh Keartland, 1966, first edition. Hard cover with dust cover, 432 pages. Some tears to d/j.  

Previous owner stamp on outside of book and inside, some foxing, otherwise all intact and good.

This is the first biography of the great Boer General. Johannes Meintjies, drawing on a vast mass of unpublished material, has tackled the whole De la Rey story from the pioneering days of his childhood in the Free State and the Transvaal , through the First War of Independence, and on to the Boer War. Meintjes takes us on a journey to the great battles of Modderrivier and Magersfontein, the campaign in the Western Transvaal up to Tweebosch and the Treaty of Vereeniging, the Convention at Durban and the First World War, ending with the tremendous climax of 15 September 1914, when De la Rey was shot dead on the eve of the Rebellion.

In this biography we are brought close to a man of power and passion, of warmth and humour, through whose life strange forces moved – such as the 'Prophet' Van Rensburg who passed, like a godly messenger in an ancient Greek tragedy, through the later phases of De la Rey’s life. Patriotism and humour, aggression, guilt and mystery feature in the story of the magnificent De la Rey, striding the South African landscape in a lonely dignity towards his ultimate destiny.