Search Results: Biography from Christison Rare Books, IOBA SABDA

(London, John Murray, 1996). 8vo; brown boards; laminated pictorial dustwrapper; pp. xii + 340; frontispiece portrait, map; name stamp of previous owner on front free endpaper; scattered light foxing and browning. Good to very good condition. "This book is the magnificent sequel to Night of the New Moon in which Laurens van der Post described, with such compassion, his brutal captivity in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. On the surrender of the Japanese, he found himself overnight in the unusual position of having to keep peace in Java through the Japanese who had held him in captivity for three and a half years. The Admiral's Baby tells vividly, for the first time, this extraordinary episode in the history of the twentieth century." .

(London: Macmillan, 1995) 0333645197. 8vo; original black boards, lettered in gilt on spine; laminated pictorial dustwrapper; pictorial endpapers; pp. xiv + (ii) + 757, incl. index; plates. Some soiling and edgewear to reverse of dustwrapper's top edge; top edge of lower board scuffed; edges spotted. Good to very good condition. "Albert Speer: His Battle With Truth is a compelling and beautifully readable work, one of the greatest on Hitler's Germany, the Second World War and its awful aftermath, seen through the life of an extraordinary man. It illuminates the co-existence of and the struggle between good and evil in humanity." .

(Stellenbosch: University of Stellenbosch, 1937). 245 x 185 mm; original thin card wrappers; pp. (iv) + 51. Corners a little curled; staples rusted. Very good condition. Contents: "Uit die Lewe van Charles Etienne Boniface. Taalmeester, Toneelspeler, Dramaturg, Musicus, Cholericus" deur Dr. J.L.M. Franken, Professor in Frans, Universiteit van Stellenbosch. Text in Afrikaans, with Dutch and French quotations. .

(London: Faber and Faber, 1933). 12mo; original green cloth, lettered in gilt on spine; dustwrapper; pp. 272, incl. index. Scattered foxing. Good condition, in a very good dustwrapper. "In this book you will find not only a memorable picture of English life and manners a hundred years ago, but also the self-portrait of one who, with all his faults, was a great patriot, a great writer and a great friend of those who most needed to be befriended." - Howard Spring in the Evening Standard .

(London: Macmillan, 1997) 0333677978. 8vo; original red boards; laminated pictorial dustwrapper; pictorial endpapers; pp. (vi) + 201; line drawings. Bump to top edge; top edge of dustwrapper very slightly curled. Very good condition. "Sentenced to life for murder, Hugh Collins served 16 years in prisons in Scotland. Autobiography of a Murderer is his raw, powerful account of the life that led to 'life'. He describes the close-knit world of 1960s Glasgow where drink, thieving and slashing were the measure of a man. Brought up by his grandmother and pumped up with heroic stories of a Robin Hood father who was in prison for most of Collins' youth, he describes the gangland life that led remorselessly to the murder that cost him his freedom. Still the hard man, Collins finds himself in the Special Unit at Barlinnie - the experimental end of the road for violent lifers. A concoction of drugs, art and therapy forces him to face up to the futility of a life of violence. Why did he… Read More

(London: Oxford University Press, 1943, 2nd edition). Crown 8vo; original green cloth; no dustwrapper; endpaper map; colour frontis. portrait; pp. 122; plates; some illustrations in text. Cover somewhat worn and a little soiled; corners bumped; previous owner's name on front pastedown; sporadic, light foxing. Fair to good condition. Brief account of the life of Baden-Powell, the hero of the Matabele War, who went on to further prominence as a general in the Anglo-Boer War and as founder of the Boy Scouts movement. .

(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1972) 684127547. 8vo; original green cloth, lettered in gilt on spine, with gilt crowned cranes device to upper cover; pictorial dustwrapper; pp. xiii + (iii) + 302; illustrations by the author. Dustwrapper torn and sunned; light wear to bottom fore-corner of upper board; trace of foxing to edges. Very good condition, in a modest dustwrapper. "Jan Juta is a many-talented man: painter, designer, author, lecturer, and lay preacher in the Episcopal Church. Born in Cape Town, South Africa, he was the only son of Sir Henry and Lady Juta, politically and socially prominent members of what was then called the Cape Colony. After attending Christ Church College, Oxford, he studied art in Rome, Madrid, and Paris. His murals have been commissioned in France, England, South Africa, and the United States ..." .

(Cape Town: Howard Timmins, 1975) 0869781103. 8vo; original yellow boards, lettered in white on spine; pictorial dustwrapper; pp. 161; plates. Dustwrapper a little rubbed and slightly edgeworn; bookplate to front pastedown; bottom edges of boards lightly shelf-rubbed; a little foxing to endpapers and edges. Good condition. "Barnett Potter was a man of Africa, a rugged individualist who made his own way in life and fought for what he believed. Journalist, broadcaster and author ... Barnett Potter was also an airman, a resolute and tought explorer of the skies above and the earth beneath. ... This book is a portrait of him by his wife Ursula, but includes some of his own thrilling and often humorous accounts of his flying adventures." .

(London: Doubleday, 2002) 0385603444. 8vo; original grey boards, lettered in silver gilt on spine; laminated pictorial dustwrapper; pp. (xii) + 254. Boards very slighly bumped; faint foxing to top edge. Very good condition. "What happened to me affected all of us - my mother, my father, my sisters and me: we all fell apart under the horror of it, and we all tried to pretend that there was no horror. Here, in her own words, prize-winning novelist Carolyn Slaughter tells the story of a family that destroyed itself from within, and of the ways she found to overcome terrors no child should have to bear. Growing up in a remote British protectorate (now Botswana) in the heart of the Kalahari Desert, Carolyn was inspired by the stark beauty of her childhood home. All too soon, this magnificent and isolated landscape would become a refuge for a six-year-old girl with nowhere to turn. Neither her mother, doomed by depression and guilt, nor her sister could shield her from the most terrible of… Read More

(London, Folio Society, 1989). Slipcase, original half-cloth, very slightly mottled, pp. 260, plates. Bookplate on the front free endpaper. .

(Johannesburg: Pan Macmillan, 2016) 9781770105065. 234 x 151 mm; laminated pictorial wrappers; pp. (x) + 342. Near-fine condition. "Trevor Noah's path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show in New York began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of his relationship with his fearless, rebellious and fervently religious mother - his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life. The eighteen personal essays collected here are by turns hilarious, dramatic and deeply affecting. Whether being thrown from a moving car during an attempted kidnapping or simply trying to survive the… Read More

(Cape Town: Human and Rousseau, 1974) 079810452X. 8vo; original brown boards, lettered in white on spine; pictorial dustwrapper; pp. 208; black-and-white photographs. Dustwrapper somewhat rubbed and edgeworn; spine slightly cocked; some foxing. Good condition. "Miss Juta is a jack of many trades. Apart from a colourful war record, during which she was awarded the Croix-de-Guerre, she is a horsewoman, big game enthusiast, golf champion, traveller, broadcaster, and author of The Pace of the Ox, the life of President Paul Kruger. She has known many notable and amusing people, who add lustre to her story, and in this book there is to be found a wide diversity of interest and humour, and a new and comprehensive picture of many of South Africa's most fascinating facets." .

(Manchester, Carcanet Press Limited, 1989). With an introduction by Martin Esslin; 8vo; original black boards; pictorial dustwrapper slightly rubbed; pp. 135, including index; black-and-white photographs. Very good condition. "Bertolt Brecht's plays and politics remain controversial. So does his personality. But there is no disputing his place as one of the giants of European theatre. His plays and writings about theatre have a central place in the tradition." .

(Cape Town: Howard Timmins, 1958). Foreword by Dornford Yates. 8vo; mustard-coloured boards, lettered in red on spine; no dustwrapper; pp. (x) + 173; illustrations. Paper rather browned, owing to paper stock used; some foxing; earlier owner's name signed on front free endpaper. Good condition. 'At various times in my life I had tried my hand at farming, ranching, mining and even commercial travelling but for the greater part I had been a soldier. I was now a pensioner retired from the Regular Army where I had attained the august rank of Brigadier and was in a position to take the lesser-paid jobs. ... And so started a new life, really a new career, both for Joan and for me. Hotel work is a life you either love or loathe. I love most of it, though there are certain aspects I hated from the start and always will. On the whole though, looking back over the years and the various hotels we have managed, we have had a tremendous amount of happiness .. and assuredly we have laughed more than… Read More

(London: George Allen, 1911). 8vo; gilt lettering and buccaneer device to spine; t.e.g.; Hillsborough Hall bookplate of J. Willis Dixon on front pastedown; "A Willis Dixon 1913" in pencil on half title; pp. xxxv + (i) + 508, incl. index; engraved plates; some maps in text; folding map. Some wear to head and tail of dulled spine; bottom fore-corners of boards bumped; some foxing to endpapers and outer leaves; sporadic spotting elsewhere. Good condition, with the bookplate of a member of the famous Sheffield silver family. The subtitle reads as follows: "A true account of the most remarkable assaults committed of late years upon the coasts of the West Indies by the buccaneers of Jamaica and Tortuga (both English and French). Wherein are contained more especially the Unparalleled Exploits of Sir Henry Morgan, our English Jamaican Hero, who sacked Porto Bello, burnt Panama, etc. By John Esquemeling, One of the Buccaneers who was present at those tragedies. Now faithfully rendered… Read More

(London, Hutchinson, preface dated 1924). Original cloth, little marked, corners bumped and spine faded, pp. 320, frontispiece, plates. Includes: Southern France and South Africa; Diamond Digger in 1871; Old Morocco; etc. .

(London, Chatto & Windus, 1969). Pictorial dustwrapper, frayed, original buckram, gilt, pp. xix + 340, a few illustrations. 'Hackwriter, satirist, comic poet, Rowlandson's collaborator, Editor of The Times when not in prison for debt, raconteur, life-long enigma: his adventures and misadventures.' 'Thousands of nineteenth-century readers knew the Tours of Doctor Syntax, loved the old-fashioned hero and the aquatints by Rowlandson illustrating the tours, and never heard of the author, William Combe. This was exactly as Combe intended; for half a century of authorship, he never signed a single work. He preferred to be known as a gentleman of leisure, a literary dilettante, even when busily turning out book after book from his quarters in debtors' prison.' .

(Berlin: Verlegt bei Paul Cassirer, 1919). 8vo; quarter calf and papered boards; lettered in gilt on spine; ribbon marker; tinted top edge; pp. 307 + (ii). Spine eroded at head; boards worn and somewhat soiled; earlier owner's name signed on front free endpaper; regular, light browning throughout; occasional fox spot; binding a bit slack. German text. Ferdinand Lassalle (1825-1864) was a German-Jewish jurist and social activist, who was mortally wounded in a duel over a young woman. He founded the first German workers' party, and his philosophy had elements of socialism, though he himself lived somewhat lavishly. This book is an appreciation of his doctrine and campaigning. .

(London, Hutchinson, 2002). 8vo; original black boards; laminated pictorial dustwrapper; pp. xvi + 208; black-and-white photographic illustrations in text. Near fine condition. As read on BBC Radio 4. "When the Japanese invaded the beautiful Indonesian island of Java during the Second World War Clara Kelly was four years old. Her family was separated - her father was sent to work on the Burma railway, and she together with her mother and her two brothers, one a six-week-old baby, were sent to a 'women's camp'. They were interned there until the end of the war. Clara's descriptions of the appalling deprivations and impersonal brutality of the camp - standing in the baking heat for hours of 'tenko' roll call, living on one cup of rice a day - are countered by the courage and resilience shown by all the internees, most poignantly her own mother. Remarkable too is the way the children, Clara and her elder brother, and their friends keep their spirits high, finding ways… Read More

(London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994) 1856194310. 4to; original maroon boards, lettered in gilt on spine; laminated pictorial dustwrapper; ribbon marker; pp. 224, incl. index; profusely illustrated with facsimiles and reproductions of contemporary photographs and artwork, with much colour. Dustwrapper's spine panel and a little of upper panel sunned; faint trace of spotting to top edge. Very good condition. "This is a delightful and illuminating journey through Winston Churchill's early years. Churchill himself is the guide, leading his granddaughter Celia Sandys down avenues previously unexplored. From the separate strands of her grandfather's early writing, his mature recollections of childhood and her own comment, she weaves a fascinating story of the impish, lonely and sickly little boy who by his own tenacious attitude to life survived against all odds to fulfil his earliest dreams and fantasies. Drawing on fresh material from the family archives Celia Sandys makes the first… Read More