REYNARD THE FOX IN SOUTH AFRICA by W.H.I Bleek

Estimate

R2,000 - R4,000

Hammer

R3,200

REYNARD THE FOX IN SOUTH AFRICA by W.H.I Bleek

More Information

LOCATION: JOHANNESBURG

or Hottentot fables and tales

London: Trübner and co, 1864

12mo + 94pp. Hardcover bound in olive cloth. Gilt lettering to the spine.

W.H.I. Bleek’s Reynard the Fox in South Africa is historically significant as an early scholarly study of southern African oral literature and folklore. Published in 1864, it examines animal tales—particularly stories featuring the jackal—and compares them with the European Reynard the Fox tradition. Bleek, a pioneering linguist and ethnographer, was among the first scholars to record and analyse indigenous southern African narratives systematically. The work is therefore important not only to folklore studies, but also to the early documentation of African languages, storytelling traditions and cultural history during the nineteenth century.