ORME, Edward. A Collection of Portraits of the Savage Tribes Inhabiting the Boundaries of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope. Taken from the Life in 1812, by an Officer of the 21st Lt. Dragoons, engaged in an Expedition against those Tribes, under Lt. Coll. Graham. London: Edwar Orme. 1822.
Folio. Early 20th-century half-calf over the old boards, spine lettered in gilt, boards ornamented in gilt, patterned endpapers; lithographic title-page and eight hand-coloured plates in aquatint and lithography, preserving the original tissue guards; occasional light spotting, otherwise very good.
First edition of a legendary rarity, especially complete with all plates, as here. "Edward Orme was, after Rudolph Ackermann, the most important publisher of illustrated books during the short golden age of the coloured aquatint, but there is no evidence that he followed Ackermann's move into lithography" (ODNB, which underpins the rarity of this work, as the author of this entry apparently
never saw this publication).
Provenance: Old manuscript title-label to front cover, ownership inscription J. Herwarth, dated 1829 on front fly leaf; book label of Alpheus Fuller Williams (1874-1953), a California-born South African mining engineer who died in Cape Town, and published the book The Genesis of the Diamond in 1932; bookplate Vergenoeg (most likely related to the South African Vergenoeg Mining Company). The most important bookplate, pasted above the other two is that Ida & F.W. Hosken, South Africa book collectors, engraved and designed in 1979. Ida Hosken published their collection catalogue in 1981 in Transvaal. This copy purchased by the Hoskens at the Vergenoeg Library sale in Cape Town in July 1980.
Mendelssohn II, p.271, ("a great rarity").
#2121401