Though on publication nine years or so ago, “Prinsloo of Prinsloosdorp” achieved a marked success in South Africa, and in circles well versed in South African affairs, there is no doubt that the little book never met with the general appreciation it deserved. On its merits it is a classic, and, though possibly the Boer and his ways may have altered, as a record of how a white republic could be governed in modern times, the “Tale of Transvaal Officialdom” can never be excelled. Certainly nothing more humorously naive has ever been written than this vindication, ostensibly written by his son-in-law, of the much maligned Piet Prinsloo’s memory; it should occupy a place in the bookshelf of everyone who likes to be intellectually amused.
Leaven: A Black and White Story. Douglas Blackburn.
6s.
The author of “Prinsloo of Prinsloosdorp” has more than once proved his ability to write a sustained and serious story, and though certain aspects of life in South Africa are so absurd as to be merely amusing, there is no question that the native problem with which he has chosen to deal in his latest book, is sufficiently grave. So far the Kafir in fiction has either been a farcical chatterbox or an object lesson of futile humanitarianism. Witty and pathetic as Mr. Douglas Blackburn can be on occasion, he indulges in neither low comedy, nor sickly sentimentality in “Leaven.” He traces the young Kafir from leaving his native kraal in guilty haste, to the luxury of a good position in a mining compound. Incidentally young Bulalie is cast into prison and treated with the grossest brutality, and the characters who are concerned in his abasement and rescue are altogether original; the unconventional missionary, the Pietermaritzberg landlady, and the compound manager, are only a few of the admirable sketches which make “Leaven” a novel of remarkable and original merit.
General Literature.
London Dead, and other Verses. C. Kennett Burrow.
1s. net.
The Lost Water, and other Poems. Mrs. I. K. Lloyd.
1s. net.