My African Home; or, Bush Life in Natal When a Young Colony [1852-7]

(Durban: T. W. Griggs, 1973). Number 359 of an edition limited to 1000 copies. Text facsimile of the Sampson Low edition of 1887. 8vo; original dark green cloth, lettered in gilt on spine; pictorial dustwrapper (housed in removable protector); pp. (x) + 364; plates. Dustwrapper a little rubbed and edgeworn (housed in Brodart protector); gift inscription to front free endpaper; light foxing to edges and endpapers. Very good condition. "Mrs. Feilden and her husband went to South Africa in a sailing ship, and soon after their arrival at Port Natal they established themselves at their farm, 'Feniscowles,' near Durban, where all the hardships and troubles of pioneer life seem to have befallen them. … The Feildens appear to have kept an open house, and the writer comments on the free and easy manner of their self-invited guests … There were, however, plenty of guests of a very different stamp, among the names mentioned being many of the old pioneers of Natal-Bishop Colenso, the Fynns, William Baldwin, the celebrated hunter and author, and many others, who enjoyed the rough and ready hospitality of Feniscowles. Of Bishop Colenso the author observes that she considered him 'an earnest good man,' but 'despotic'; reference is made to the Bishop's labours …, and it is stated that Mr. Fynn, the old pioneer, asserted that the missionaries never got a real convert from the Zulu." - Mendelssohn I, pp. 539-40 .