After Pretoria: The Guerilla War – Vol. 3

Custom Adelaide anthology

According to references, there are four volumes of After Pretoria, volume 2 to 4 were published in 1902, whereas each page in this volume is dated between 1900 and 1901.  The sticker inside the front cover of the binding company who collated and bound this book was F. Binns & Co. of Adelaide which ceased business in 1899. It is highly likely that this book was bound during a transition period after their closure between 1900 and 1901 with the sticker of the binding company still being used, tying this copy to South Australia’s book trade at the turn of the century.

All larger size pages are sequential from 1 up to page 192 and thereafter numbered 506 to 528 before the smaller format pages start. Each of these smaller pages 24 in total are titled “Under the Union Jack” with each page presenting different subjects related to the second Boer war.

Under the Union Jack was a weekly illustrated magazine published by George Newnes in London between November 1899 and June 1900, devoted to the Second Boer War. It offered readers vivid pictorial updates, war news, and serialized accounts of the campaign in South Africa, later bound into volumes.

Binding Context: This volume bound in Adelaide would implicate that the binder or persons who had this book bound likely had access to loose issues of “Under the Union Jack” and included them when assembling the volume. This was not uncommon — binders often “padded” books with related material, especially serialized war magazines, to make them more appealing or comprehensive.

We acquired this book whilst living in Adelaide in 2006 at auction.