A Woman's Wanderings and Trials During the Anglo-Boer War

De la Rey, Mrs [Jacoba Elizabeth]

Description:

Translated by Lucy Hotz. Crown 8vo; original pale yellow cloth, lettered in red on spine and upper cover; pp. (vi) + 144 + (viii); plates. Cloth a bit sunned, esp. to spine; slight bump to top fore-corner of upper board; browned throughout, as usual. Good to very good condition. Loosely inserted is a recent newspaper article on Nonnie de la Rey. (Hackett, p. 141; Mendelssohn I, pp. 438-439) The inspirational account of Nonnie de la Rey's efforts to evade capture during the Anglo-Boer War, while rendering support to her famous husband's guerilla campaign. 'Mrs. De La Rey states that her husband left for the border on the 4th of October 1899 (a week before hostilities broke out). She seems to have endeavoured to keep in touch with him throughout the war, and led an adventurous and wandering life for eighteen months after she left Lichtenburg, by General Methuen's orders. She had many narrow escapes of capture, but always managed to get away, until she was finally surrounded soon after Lord Methuen's defeat and capture. At this time the English troops appear to have severely pressed the Boers, the authoress saying, "We hardly knew now where next to go, the block-houses were hemming us in on every side - we had to be on the watch the whole time." Strict orders were given to the troops that nothing belonging to the Boer General's wife was to be touched, and she and her belongings were left quite undisturbed. In the main, the book is written in a good-humoured manner, and little bitterness is displayed, but much religious fervour. The conditions of peace were very distasteful to Mrs. De La Rey and her family (diminished by the loss of two sons during the war), and in referring to the terms she makes the following significant remark, "We have been betrayed by many of our burghers. We have lost our rights for a time."' - Mendelssohn.

Details:

  • Publisher: T. Fisher Unwin
  • Publisher Place: London
  • Date of Publication: 1903
  • Size: Crown 8vo
  • Lot No: 309
  • Hammer Price: $121
  • Bids: 2
  • Visits: 170
  • Estimate: $235
  • Reserve: $115

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