Kruger's Pretoria cover

Pub: A.A. Balkema, Cape Town.
Print Run: 2,000 with a Numbered and Signed Edition: 500 in half bound leather.
ISBN: not allocated
Out of Print
1971

The Cover Picture
The picture on the dust jacket of the original edition of Kruger"s Pretoria, is wrapped around the book with the left hand side of the picture, therefore, appearing on the back. It is also printed in full as a fold-out in the book opposite page 100. It is by A A Anderson and an inscription on the back reads, "A sketch taken in Pretoria Market Square in Transvaal with the British troops bringing in the old chief Secoecoeni a prisoner with seven of his wives sitting in the buckwagon. 1879."

Kruger Memorial

The "Market Square" referred to is what we now know as Church Square and the old church is in the background, behind the line of horsemen. The original painting was in the old Africana Museum in Johannesburg but nobody seems to know where it is now. The new edition will have a new cover that refers directly to Paul Kruger and Pretoria.

Kruger's Pretoria

Buildings and Personalities of the city in the 19th century, with specially commissioned drawings by Hannes Meiring.

'A lively and very personal history of early Pretoria ... This deceptively straightforward book ... I have not been able to fault the author on any historical fact.' J F Marais, 1971.

Why I wrote Kruger's Pretoria

I wrote the first edition of Kruger's Pretoria due to public demand! I was a journalist and wrote a series of feature articles called 'Old Pretoria', that discussed the early buildings of the city and the ones that were still standing. Enough readers wrote to the Editor of the Pretoria News asking if my articles were going to be published as a book. It was offered to three publishers who all wanted it, so I became an author – such is life!

From the Dust Cover

Pretoria’s history is comparatively recent. It was once the capital of Kruger’s Republic, a time of turbulence and insecurity; and it was the Western outpost of what in those times were the wilds of Africa.

Pretoria

The houses and public buildings that have remained from that period are interesting from an architectural point of view because there was no local tradition or style. The visitors and settlers who were there were unusual men with strong and often eccentric personalities; the homes that they built are used by Vivien Allen as the basis for a lively and very personal history of early Pretoria.

Over 200 photographs support the text, often rescued from family albums, and from archival sources. In addition, there are many specially drawn illustrations of old buildings by Hannes Meiring.