BUTLER'S SOUTH AFRICAN SKETCHES

BUTLER, H[ENRY]. SOUTH AFRICAN SKETCHES: Illustrative of the Wild Life of a Hunter on the Frontier of the Cape Colony. London: Ackermann and Co., 1841. Small folio. Contemporary half calf on marbled boards. 15 pages, List of Subjects. Lithographed title, fifteen plates with thirty lithographed vignettes, sixteen of which are beautifully colored, interleaved with paper guards. Light wear to extremities. Otherwise, a fine copy.

FIRST EDITION. Little is known about Butler, a British military officer who made his sketches "to relieve the dreariness of two years' residence upon a barbarian frontier" (p. 3). Mendelssohn describes South African Sketches as a "rather scarce volume of hunting scenes in the Cape" and an "excellent record of the appearance of this part of South Africa during the first half on the nineteenth century. Many of [the sketches] are described from extracts 'from a journal written on the spot,' which affords a capital account of the sports enjoyed in these districts, with some interesting notes on the political and military position of the country." The colored lithographs are exquisitely executed. Abbey, who seldom commented on content, called South African Sketches "[a]n interesting book, combining lithographed line-drawings with more elaborate coloured lithographs." Abbey Travel 336. Mendelssohn I, p. 235. Tooley 126. BT000015.

$2500

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