Description
Signed limited edition of The Memoirs of Paul Kruger,the four-time President of the South African Republic.
Octavo, [two volumes], xi, 235pp; vii, 239-543pp. Full white vellum, title in gilt on spines. Top edge gilt. Solid text blocks, bowed covers, faint foxing to spines, light soiling to corners. Includes frontispiece portrait in both volumes, each protected by tissue guard. Previous ownership inscription from 1902 on front free endpaper of each volume, with occasional marginalia in pencil throughout. From a limited edition of 50 copies, this being number 2, signed by President Paul Kruger.
Paul Kruger (1825-1904) served as the face of the Boer efforts to establish the South African Republic as an independent state in the mid-1800s. He was elected the Commandant-General, then appointed Vice President in 1877 before South Africa was annexed by Britain. After the Boer victory of the First Boer War, Kruger was elected President and remained in office from 1883-1902. Upon the start of the Second Boer War, Kruger left for Europe and refused to return to South Africa as the British victory became clear. He passed in Switzerland in 1904, and was buried in the Heroes’ Acre of Pretoria.
