The story transpires in Cape Town, around 1820, and involves much political history in the telling. It contains the mysterious figure of Surgeon-Major James Barry, and a mysterious garden to whose secret gate Barry has a key. A beautiful Dutch girl of the colony, Aletta, discovers the garden and its captive, an extraordinarily beautiful young man. To break through the wall is now the one desire of both. At the moment of success, when they are about to rush into each other’s arms, a pistol shot from the ever watchful slave, Majuba, kills the young man, and Barry, arriving opportunely upon the scene, tells Aletta that his son (rather her son, for Barry turns out to be a woman) was a leper.
“To offer criticism of such a clever and at the same time, such an original book, is difficult, yet one wishes that Réné Juta’s narrative was a trifle more coherent, in its first chapters at least. Nevertheless, ‘Cape Currey’ is an extraordinarily well written book.” G. M. H.
+ − Boston Transcript p7 Ag 25 ’20 460w
“It is evident that she knows its history so well that she can write of life there a hundred years ago with as sure a touch and as vivid a pen as if she were writing about her own garden. There are still greater skill and knowledge and noteworthy insight in the portraying of the characters.”
+ N Y Times p26 Ag 22 ’20 650w Outlook 126:378 O 27 ’20 40w
“The style of the performance is a little overelaborate, somewhat early Hewlettian in manner, but with a flavor of its own.” H. W. Boynton
+ − Review 3:318 O 13 ’20 120w
“This story of Cape Town a hundred years ago has sufficient merit to make us wish that it had still more. The language and spirit of a bygone day are sometimes effectively suggested. But we are repelled by the general crudeness of style, and deficiencies in construction.”
+ − Sat R 130:122 Ag 7 ’20 100w Springf’d Republican p11a S 12 ’20 200w