MEMOIR

The Greville Memoirs caused an uproar on its publication in 1874. Queen Victoria described it as a 'dreadful and really scandalous book' which should be 'severely censored and discredited'. Disraeli characterised its author as 'the vainest being—I don't limit myself to man—that ever existed; and I don't forget Cicero and Lytton Bulwer […] when he was not scandalous, he was prolix and prosy—a clumsy, wordy writer […] a more verbose, indefinite, unwieldy affair, without a happy expression, never issued from the pen of a fagged subordinate of the daily press'.

[4] + 78pp., 12mo. In original grey-green printed wraps. Presentation inscription on fly-leaf, dated January 1907. The volume comprises three pieces. First, an untitled memoir, with footnote at end: 'My father begun [sic] this autobiography at the request of my brother Jack, and after his death did not continue it.'; second, an account of a street fight between a policeman and a 'bone-picker', titled 'A Street Adventure, 1845'; lastly, 'The Working Men's College'. Four copies on COPAC, but now uncommon.

113pp., 8vo. On 57 leaves, stapled together, with white card backing. No title-page. Worn and aged, with first leaf detached, but in fair condition overall. In 1988, in Maputo, Mozambique, where Sachs was exiled as an ANC activist, he lost an arm and his sight in one eye when a bomb was placed in his car by agents acting for the South African Regime. Sach's memoir is an important document in the history of the South African freedom struggle. Widely praised on its publication, it received the Alan Paton Award in 1991.

ii + 133pp., 8vo. Photographic portrait of the author as frontispiece. Fair, in lightly-worn blue leatherette binding, gilt. Inscription in English on front free endpaper: 'To National Committee for the Abolition of Capital Punishment, from Akir [sic] Masaki L.L.D. | 12. 22. 1969'. In a three-page 'Preface to the English Edition', dated July 1964, the author explains that the Japanese edition of the book was first published nineteen years before.