The Carnarvon Dale Papers (Complete set)

(Paterson and Grahamstown, EC: self-published, no date). Being letters and diaries preserved by Mrs J. F. Slater (Sarah Ann Bland) at Carnarvon Dale on the Bushman's River and edited by her granddaughter Rosalind Slater. Ten volumes, a complete set: 220 x 150 mm; pictorial wrappers. Individual descriptions follow: 1. John and Sarah: pp. (ii) + 77; contemporary illustrations. 2. Bonnins & Blands: pp. (ii) + 109; photographs. 3. Letters of 1872: pp. (iv) + 104; photographs; facsimiles. 4. Old Aunt: pp. (ii) + 67; colour plates; monochrome illustrations and facsimiles. 5. Schooldays: pp. (iv) + 116 + (i); monochrome illustrations; facsimiles. 6. John Edward: This volume edited by Doreen Blenkinsop. pp. (ii) + 123 + (iv); photographs and facsmiles. 7. Diamonds: Signed by editor on title page. pp. (i) + 101 (quirky pagination); photographs and facsimile. 8. Charles: pp. (ii) + 136 + (ii); photographs; map. 9. Frances: pp. (i) + 85 (again, odd pagination, rectos and versos numbered unconventionally in the early pages); photographs; map; facsimile. 10. The Boer War: pp. (i) + 165; contemporary photographs and facsimiles; unconventional pagination. First, eighth, ninth and tenth volumes signed by the editor. Spines a little tanned; some foxing. All volumes very good overall. "Sarah Ann Slater kept letters, and several hundred from relations and friends fill the old campaign chest at Carnarvon Dale. We are printing in several booklets some of these letters, which include those written to each other by Sarah and her husband John Slater, and those of the Bonnin sisters and the Blands. The children of John and Sarah wrote home from schools, the Diamond Fields in the 1870's, Johannesburg in the 1880's and 1890's, from Rhodesia 1890, on service during the Boer War and from England. There are also numbers of letters from their grandchildren and from their relatives, the Parkers, Blands, Wilmots, Hobsons, Berringtons and Slaters." In addition to the insights these books provide on the life of an extended 1820 Settler family, volumes 7-9 are devoted largely to letters from the Kimberley Diamond Fields and from Rhodesia, including much on experiences with the Pioneer Column, while the tenth volume is a collection of family correspondence to and from the battlefront during the Anglo-Boer War. .