John Blades Currey, 1850 to 1900: Fifty years in the Cape Colony -

Brenthurst second series.
Publisher: The Brenthurst Press (Pty) Ltd, 1986.

This edition is limited to 1000 copies of which this copy is one of the 850 copies bound in crimson cloth. Standard edition.
Binding crimson cloth. Boards, cloth and spine are all intact. Bowed front board turn slightly outward away from the leaves. A mark on bottom of foredge of text block. Pages clean and  clear, binding tight and secure.
DJ has small tears close to corners of both foredges, as well as on back on bottom close to foredge. Otherwise DJ in Very Good condition.

Several reproductions of contemporary illustrations, in monochrome and full colour.

 "The name of John Blades Currey (1829-1904) is seldom mentioned in histories of southern Africa. Indeed, the young Englishman who arrived at the Cape in 1850 made little direct impact on its story.
He was nonetheless to become a profound influence on some of the Cape's most famous men and an astute chronicler of the political and social events of his time.
His memoirs, published here for the first time, cover half a century of Cape history, from 1850 to 1900. Soldiering, farming, copper-mining - Currey tried all these; then, on the advice of governor Sir George Grey he joined the Cape civil service. While in its employ in the late 1860s he was entrusted with the task of introducing to a sceptical Europe southern Africa's first diamond, the 'Eureka'.

Later, as secretary to the government of Griqualand West, he chose the new name of 'Kimberley' for the burgeoning diamond-fields town of New Rush. But in 1875 Currey was blamed for the diggers' rebellion there, and this led to his dismissal from office and blighted his subsequent public career. While he was in Kimberley Currey befriended two young fortune-hunters, both of whom were to become renowned premiers of the Cape: Cecil John Rhodes and John X. Merriman.
To both of them Currey was to remain a lifelong friend and counsellor. . He is revealed in the account not as a politician but as a man who helped to shape politicians, not as a man who made history but rather as one who was passionately part of it.
The manuscript forms part of The Brenthurst Collection, as do the majority of the contemporary illustrations which complement the text.  From front fly leaf.

A rare and interesting read, a beautiful copy for any collection.

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