Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Millais, John Guille. A Breath from the Veldt. Henry Sotheran and Co., 1895.
Price: US$200.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: 1st edition bound in 1/4 leather. The boards are edge worn and foxed, but remain strong and sturdy. Internally, there is foxing and age-related wear throughout, but the pages remain neat, legible and complete. Tightly bound and in very good condition indeed, considering the age of the book! JK. Our orders are shipped using tracked courier delivery services.
Seller: Chapter 1, Johannesburg, GAU, South Africa
Price: US$221.20 + shipping
Description: folio [40 x 31 cm]; x, 236 pp, 13 fine etched plates including frontis, other plates from drwgs, numerous other illus, the half-title page is present, title page vignette. original half brown leather, gilt title lettering on front cover and spine, gilt spine decoration, lower 2 inches of spine damaged and worn, effecting the inside lower corners of pages, moderate foxing on plates, else clean. The signature of R. T. Coryndon on the front endpaper. Sir Robert Thorne Coryndon was Governor of Uganda and subsequently of Kenya. There was a later edition in 1899. Mendelssohn II, 13: 'The first edition was published in 1895 and soon became very rare. . .Never before or elsewhere, have the winged and furred creatures of the wild lived in their lithe beauty and fantastic grace as in these delicate drawings. . . . the frontispiece, contributed by Sir J. E. Millais, the Last Trek, is perhaps the most beautiful illustration connected with South Africa art.' A picture of this book is available on request.
Seller: Horizon Books, Toronto, ON, Canada
Millais John Guille. A Breath fom the Veldt. Henry Sotheran & Co, 1895.
Price: US$752.74 + shipping
Description: x, 236pp, 13 full page etchings, 12 full page illustrations, original pictorial boards, folio, 32cm x 40cm, t.e.g., professionally recased with new spine and original laid on, near Fine. A lovely strong and tight copy. A stunning publication. Animals and birds of the Veldt. Glacier Books are experienced and professional booksellers. We take pride in offering carefully described books and excellent customer service.
Seller: Glacier Books, Pitlochry, United Kingdom
Millais, John Guille. A Breath from the Veldt. Henry Sotheran, London, 1895.
Price: US$1250.00 + shipping
Description: First trade edition. Folio (15 1/8 x 11 5/8 in; 384 x 296 mm). x, 236 pp.Bound c. 1949 in half crimson morocco over pale red cloth ruled in gilt. Spine with six raised bands, decoratively tooled and lettered in gilt in compartments. Marbled endpaperes, top edge gilt, others uncut. Engravings exhibit light spotting to margins. A very small rub spot to lower board. Otherwise a fine copy. Thirteen uncolored electro-engravings with tissue guards, including frontispiece, twelve full-page black and white plates, 125 black and white text illustrations. Housed in a cloth slipcase. John Guille Millais (1865-1931) was an English artist, naturalist, gardener and travel writer who specialized in wildlife and flower portraiture. He traveled extensively around the world in the late Victorian period detailing wildlife often for the first time. His was clearly a wanderlust based on a desire to see, record and paint the natural world. To this end he traveled widely in Europe, Africa and North America. A Breath of the Veldt, based upon his trip to South Africa, was his second of seventeen books on his travels and the wildlife of the places he journeyed through. It is quite likely that Millias influenced Rider Haggard's Alan Quarterman novels. Millais was was the friend and biographer of F.C. Selous, the big-game hunter that Haggard based Quartermain upon, and his descriptions of the Veldt, in which Haggard set so much of his fiction, were most certainly read and referenced by Haggard. "Never before, or elsewhere, have the winged and furred creatures of the wild lived in their lithe beauty and fantastic grace as in these delicate drawings" (Mendelssohn).
Seller: Whitmore Rare Books, Inc. -- ABAA, ILAB, Pasadena, CA, U.S.A.
Millais John Guille. A BREATH FROM THE VELDT. London Henry Sotheran 1895, 1895.
Price: US$1265.00 + shipping
Description: First edition. With a great profusion of full-page plates, textual illustrations and fine full-page gravures. Folio, publishers original white polished buckram over boards with pictorial decorations and titling on the upper cover and spine, t.e.g. x, 236 pp. Some foxing to the prelims, otherwise internally bright and clean, externally some wear and darkening to the cloth, sturdy, a very attractive copy. IMPORTANT FIRST EDITION AND A BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED WORK BY MILLAIS. ONE OF THE BEST ILLUSTRATED BOOKS OF AFRICA. "South Africa, with its attraction for the sportsman and the naturalist, has already given birth to so many books by abler pens than mine, that some apology seems necessary for the appearance of these pages. Let me say then at once that though they are occupied in the main with dissertation on, and adventures in pursuit of big game, I have endeavored as far as possible to avoid trespassing on the domain of the standard authorities on this subject. My object has been rather t o supplement from personal observation what is already known of such animals as I came across during a recent tour in South Africa; to present to the best of my ability a true picture of life in that country, whether of man, beat of bird; and to give the sportsmen of that period what help I can as a guide to the hunting grounds and how to work them to advantage. My drawing will no doubt be disappointing to admirers of the grim and gory, who know the lion only as presented in picture-books, with mane trailing on the ground, claws extended, and mouth full of blood and foam. Exception too may be taken by the uninitiated to the fantastic attitudes of some of the birds and beasts here represented. But that I cannot help. I have drawn only what I have seen, and as I have seen it, and it is not my fault if my subjects declined to display themselves in the approved conventional form." From the Authors Preface.
Seller: Buddenbrooks, Inc., Newburyport, MA, U.S.A.
Price: US$1963.67 + shipping
Description: First edition. "Highlighted by the author's detailed illustrations, this work represents Millais's journey toward the Limpopo River with excursions to hunt kudu, reedbuck, waterbuck, sable, and roan. Near the Nuanetsi River, he bagged buffalo and zebra. After leaving the Limpopo, he collected trophy kudu, as well as lion and leopard. [This is] a most readable and visually exciting book of African travel and big-game hunting" (Czech). Mendelssohn notes that the book "soon became very rare" and quotes from the Daily Telegraph review which described it as "A classic of the shooting world. Never before, or elsewhere, have the winged and furred creatures of the wild lived in their lithe beauty and fantastic grace as in these delicate drawings." Czech, p. 114; Mendelssohn II, p.13. Large quarto (377 x 280 mm). Recent dark green full calf for Asprey, spine and front cover gilt lettered and blocked in imitation of the original cloth binding, scrolling foliate turn-ins, Turkish pattern marbled endpapers, gilt edges. Electro-etched frontispiece by Sir John Millais; 12 further tissue-guarded electro-etched plates after J. G. Millais, and 12 full-page half-tone plates, numerous half-tone illustrations in text, all by the author. Spine and front cover a little sunned, mottling to front cover, some slight scratches and abrasions to binding, foxing to margins of electro-etched plates. A very good copy, handsomely bound.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom