Lord De Villiers and His Times: South Africa 1842-1914

London: Constable & Company, Ltd, 1925. Hardcover. Very Good. Hardcover. First Edition. With laid-in two page letter and postcard from Walker to Cornelis Willem de Kiewiet, and with de Kiewiet's ownership signature on the free front endpaper. Eric Anderson Walker (September 1886 – February 1976) was King George V Professor of History at the University of Cape Town and Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History at the University of Cambridge. He was a pioneer in writing the history of South Africa and later an important historian of the British Empire, though by the end of his life his work was seen as dated and Eurocentric. Cornelis Willem de Kiewiet (May1902 – February 1986) was a 20th-century historian most notable for having served as president of Cornell University and the University of Rochester. De Kiewiet was born in the Netherlands, but grew up in South Africa, where his father went as a diamond and gold-seeker and later worked as an employee of the Transvaal Republic's Railway. In the early 1920s, Cornelis earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in history from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, and, in 1927, he earned his Ph.D. in History from the University of London. The inserted correspondence from Walker to de Kiewiet was written in 1927, while de Kiewiet was working on his Ph.d. The texts discuss South African history during and after the Boer War, and such figures as Southey and Froude. They do not pertain to this work directly.

The book is about Lord de Villiers (1842 - 1914), a Cape Colony judge and lawyer who served as Attorney General in the Molteno Government, Chief Justice for the Cape Colony, and later the first Chief Justice for the Union of South Africa. Serving for 40 years, he is often considered to be the most influential judge in South African history.

Bound in original dark blue cloth with gilt author and title to spine. Corners bumped and some wrinkling to cloth but still very good. Interior pages also very good. Frontispiece portrait of Lord de Villiers. 523 pages including index. AFRICA/032916.