Scenes and Occurrences in Albany and Caffer-Land, South Africa
Author: Thomas Philipps (1776-1859)
Year: 1827
Publisher: Printed for William Marsh
Place: London
Description:
xvi preliminaries+214 pages with fold out hand colored lithographed frontispiece. Small octavo (7 1/4 x 4 3/4") bound Victorian style in full smooth brown calf leather with gilt titling and decorations on the spine and blind-stamped cover with gilt decorative fillets at the corners and marbled end papers with half title. (Abbey Travel 329; Mendelssohn II, 165.) First edition.
This book was published anonymously. Attributed to Thomas Phillipps (Mistakenly spelt "Phillips" in some references). A common mistake is to identify the fold out hand colored frontispiece as an aquatint, but it is a lithograph. There are two reasons for this mistake. The first is that the book was issued with a piece of paper glued over the title at the bottom of the frontispiece to correct the name of the Kowie River. In some copies where the correction slip has come loose one can see that it was first printed as the "Rownie River". This correction slip in many cases obscures the small lettering at the bottom of the illustration which, as in this case, clearly states "Drawn on stone". The second reason is that most illustrations of the time were printed from metal aquatint plates and in this case the lithographer used his crayon in a style that resembles an aquatint. Copies without the half title have invariably been re-bound, indicating that it may have been present, but jettisoned by the binder. The best reference book on Thomas Phillipps was published in 1960: "Phillipps, 1820 Settler" edited by Arthur Keppel-Jones in consultation Philliipps' great-granddaughter E.K. Heathcote. An account of a three month stay in South Africa in 1825. Much information on the Kaffirs and Graham's Town.
Condition:
Recased with original spine laid on, book plate front paste down and previous owner's signature to front end paper verso dated 1874 else a very nice copy of a scarce item.
