249mm x 370mm

Spine splitting; minor staining; edges creased.

R800

Box 3 no 15

The Union Annual for South Africa (Xmas 1914) stands as a remarkably rare piece of early South African publishing history, released at a moment of intense national crisis.

Key Historical & Visual Aspects

• Published at the Outbreak of WWI & the Maritz Rebellion: Released for Christmas 1914, this issue coincided with South Africa's turbulent entry into the First World War. Just months prior to its printing, the country was plunged into civil conflict during the 1914 Maritz Rebellion, where Boer generals opposed Prime Minister Louis Botha's decision to invade German South-West Africa on behalf of the British Empire.

• Early Heraldry of the Union of South Africa: The lower portion of the cover prominently features the official Coat of Arms of the Union of South Africa, which had been granted by King George V only four years earlier in September 1910 following unification. Supported by a springbok and an gemsbok, the quartered shield bears the national motto, Ex Unitate Vires ("Out of Unity, Strength").

• Historic Joint Publishing Venture: The bottom imprint records a rare collaboration between two rival publishing giants: The Cape Times (Cape Town) and The Transvaal Leader (Johannesburg), distributed through the Central News Agency (CNA) at One Shilling (1/-).

• Frontier Transport Imagery & Period Advertising: The central painting depicts an ox-wagon span crossing a rugged mountain pass riverbed, evoking late 19th-century trek transportation alongside the top banner advertisement for "Delicious Mazawattee Tea"—a brand that dominated British colonial trade throughout the late Victorian and Edwardian eras.