Tramp Royal: The True Story of Trader Horn by Tim Couzens.
Limited edition (1992)

Aloysius "Trader" Horn became an international sensation in the 1920s when his wild memoirs of African adventure were published, later spawning a famous 1931 Hollywood film. However, many dismissed his tall tales as pure fabrication.

Tim Couzens spent years tracking down the truth. He proved that the core of Horn's jaw-dropping life—which spanned Buffalo Bill's America, gunrunning in Madagascar, the Anglo-Boer War, and a final stint in a Johannesburg doss house—was entirely real. For this monumental piece of historical recovery, Couzens won both the prestigious CNA Literary Award and the Sunday Times/Alan Paton Award in 1993.

Published by Ravan Press and Witwatersrand University Press (WUP).
Ravan Press (founded in 1972) was one of South Africa's most courageous anti-apartheid publishing houses, known for giving a voice to banned, dissident, and black South African writers.
Witwatersrand University Press, as an academic entity, provided robust institutional and scholarly backing.
Combining Ravan's gritty, cutting-edge literary spirit with WUP's academic authority was a brilliant strategy to launch a 600+ page social history that was both an academic masterpiece and an accessible adventure story.

This is copy No. 12 of a limited edition of only 200 copies.

The small, minimalist line drawing of an elephant's head at the top of the page isn't just a nod to "Trader" Horn's ivory-trading days in the West African interior; it mirrors the iconic imagery of classic African frontier exploration ephemera.

While thousands of trade paperbacks were printed for the mass market, this hardback limited edition was reserved for collectors,.

Very slight wear and slight markings
150mm x 230mm x 40mm

R1,000