The Kafirs Illustrated in a Series of Drawings taken among the Amazulu, Amaponda, and Amakoza Tribes; also, Portraits of the Hottentot, Malay, Fingo, and Other Races inhabiting Southern Africa: together with Sketches of Landscape Scenery in the Zulu Country, Natal, and the Cape Colony. 

FIRST EDITION,viii + 9 – 52 pp, Lithographic Portrait of the Author as Frontispiece, 35 hand coloured lithographic plates on 30 sheets and numerous illustrations in the text, contemporary half black morocco gilt, hinges repaired, folio, London: J. Hogarth, 1849. A very attractive copy of this rare work.

George French Angas’ famous folio of South African studies in the 1840s. Angas travelled from Cape Town up the Eastern Cape and through Natal and Zululand, where he painted a number of studies of Zulu life including a portrait of King Mpande ka Senzangakhona. These studies are classic images of the period, and indeed the first edition of this book is one of the most sought-after pieces of Africana.

George French Angas (1822-1886) was the eldest son of one of South Australia’s principal founders, George Fife Angas. He studied anatomical drawing and lithography in London prior to travelling to New Zealand and Australia, and, for two years, in South Africa. In 1853 he was appointed as Secretary of the Australian Museum in Sydney, devoting himself to natural history and particularly to his first love, that of collecting and describing shells.

The three large works by George French Angas, the ‘Kaffirs,’ New Zealanders and South Australia, are amongst the most important of the illustrated travel books of their period… Of the three works, the ‘Kaffirs’ is the most uncommon”(Tooley).

1. Cape Town from the Camps Bay Road. 2. Hadji Hassan Nudin Ibanu Abdallah or Karel (A Malay Priest at Prayers) / Nazea, a Malay Woman in her walking costume (The Lion’s Head Mountain with part of Cape Town). 3. (Plate without a title, but of Wynberg). 4. Makay Creole Boy / Malay Boy of Cape Town (titles on plate surface). 5. Hottentot Holland and Somerset West. 6. The Paarl. 7. Karel Julius / Christian Matthei – Hottentot Herd Boys. 8. Leveregt Aris, an old Hottentot / an old Hottentot Woman, with half-caste great-grandchildren (both titles on plate surface). 9. (Plate without a title, but of Genadendal, a Moravian Missionary Settlement in South Africa). 10. Bavarian’s Kloof. “The Glen of Baboons”, near Genadendal. 11. Umpanda, the King of the Amazulu (title on plate surface). 12. (Plate without a title, but of Umpanda reviewing his soldiers at Nonduengu). 13. Utimuni Nephew of Chaka (title on plate surface). 14. Zulu Hunting Dance, near the Engooi Mountains. 15. Young Zulu’s in dancing costume (title on plate surface). 16. Kaal on the Umgani. Zulu Cattle & Sheep (title on plate surface). 17. Zulu Boys in dancing dress (title on plate surface). 18. Mouth of the Umvoti, on the Indian Ocean. 19. N’pae a young Zulu in Gala Dress / Two of King Umpanda’s Dancing Girls (titles on plate surface). 20. Zulu Soldiers of Kong Pandas Army. 21. Zula Kraal at Umlazi with huts and Screens (title on plate surface). 22. On the Umnonoti River, Natal. 23. Zulu Blacksmiths at work. 24. Charley, a Half-Caste Kafir Boy. 25. Inanda Kraal, Natal. 26. Gudu’s Kraal at the Tugala. Women are making Beer. 27. Zulu Kraal near Umlazi, Natal. 28. (Without a title, but of Durban – Port Natal). 29. Tragelaphus Angasii (Gray). The new Antilope from St Lucia Bay. 30. New and Remarkable Species of Lepidoptera from Natal and the Zulu Country.