Online auction offers book rarities

Of interest too is The Diary of Adam Tas (1705-06) (reserve price US$20) edited by Leo Fouche. Tas who was born in Amsterdam in 1668 was probably the first political leader of Jewish origin in South African history.

The Encyclopaedia of Southern Africa History edited by Eric Rosenthal says Tas, who came to the Cape in about 1690 where he first worked for his uncle, took the lead in protest campaign against the corrupt administration of governor Willem Adriaan van der Stel. He was jailed for 13 months.

It is said he was kept in the Stygian darkness of a dungeon in the castle and that the initial shock of coming into contact with sunlight after his release, affected his eyesight causing him to go blind.

The Owl House by Anne Emslie (RP $20) tells about the unique home in the small Karoo village of Nieu Bethesda where the recluse Helen Martins lived for many decades.

She transformed her cottage and plot of land into what Susan Imrie Ross in Landmarks, an anthology edited by Barry Jones and Joy Cameron-Dow, describes as “a fantasy world of colour, glinting glass particles, cement statues and bas-reliefs”, with major themes of owls and camels.

Martins (who committed suicide in 1976) and The Owl House gained prominence through Athol Fugard's play, Road to Mecca.

Crime writer Raymond Chandler did more than any writer of this genre to popularise the “gumshoe” or “private eye” theme.

His Smell Of Fear (RP $70), a collection of 14 early short stories, was first printed in 1965 in hardcover in London by Hamish Hamilton.

Two books by Alan Paton both signed by the author, Ah, But Your Land Is Beautiful ($140) and Too Late The Phalarope (RP $180) are on offer. Paton is best known for Cry, the Beloved Country which was published in 1948 and brought him immediate fame.

A number of Wilbur Smith's books will be auctioned including one of his best-known When The Lion Feeds (RP $300).

Two books by JM Coetzee, Slow Man (signed by the author) (RP $250) and Disgrace (RP $40) are among the lots expected to attract interest.

The Road To Waterberg (RP $40) tells of Eugene Marais' sojourn in the region where his studies of South African flora and fauna inspired two of his most famous works, My Friends the Baboons and The Soul of the White ant.

An interesting item of Churchilliana is The History of the Great Boer Trek by the Hon Henry Cloete (RP $750), said to come from Winston Churchill's library.

Two books on the Anglo Boer War deal with the sieges of Kimberley and Mafeking: EH Hancox's The Siege of Kimberley 1899-1900 and Siege Views of Mafeking — October 1899- May by EJ Ross (RP $180).

Source: Business Day

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