Quadrilles and Konfyt. The Life and Journal of Hildagonda Duckitt

(Cape Town: Maskew Miller, 1954). 8vo; original grey boards; pictorial dustwrapper (housed in removable protector); pp. xiv + (ii) + 112, incl. index; plates. Trace of edgewear to dustwrapper; earlier owner's bookplate to front pastedown; a little foxing to endpapers. Very good condition. "Hildagonda Duckitt was an outstanding figure at the Cape in the grand Victorian times and most of us think of her as the South African Mrs. Beeton. But, like that charming and elegant lady, Hildagonda Duckitt was more to her contemporaries than the author of a very special cookery book. ... She comes down to us as the representative of an age of dignified hospitality in our country. The interesting personalities and families of her time crowd these pages, which record a time of stirring events: of far-off frontier wars, the discovery of diamonds and gold and the expansion that followed, then the tragedy of the Anglo-Boer War - all of which had their effect on the serene and stately way of life at the Cape. In the midst of all this is revealed a gifted, dominating, and unusual personality, and the story of the great disappointment of her life, seemingly so crowned with success." .