Petticoat Pilgrims on Trek by Edith Emily Maturin (1909)

First edition of Petticoat Pilgrims on Trek, published in London in 1909. Written by Edith Emily Maturin (under her married pen name, Mrs. Fred Maturin), the book is a witty, highly eccentric diary detailing her life and travels under canvas in South Africa.

The Post-Boer War Housing Crisis

Though published in 1909, the narrative begins in January 1903, immediately following the conclusion of the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902). Maturin and her companion, Nellie, arrived in Johannesburg to find a chaotic boomtown plagued by an astronomical housing shortage.

Faced with "hovels" renting for exorbitant wartime rates or staying in rough local hotels, they decided to buy a white bell-tent and go camping on the veld in Auckland Park (referred to as "Auckland Valley"). Her diary captures a landscape literally scarred by recent conflict—their campsite sat right next to a ramshackle building "riddled with bullets from the war".

A Subversion of the "Trek" Myth

The cover illustration explicitly plays on the romanticized, masculine iconography of the Great Trek—the iconic kakebeenwa (ox-wagon) driving into the sunset.

However, Maturin’s title, Petticoat Pilgrims, serves as a deliberate, tongue-in-cheek subversion. Instead of rugged Voortrekkers seeking a new republic, the book chronicles two Edwardian women navigating the rugged South African interior with a distinctly comedic, domestic flair. Maturin regularly satirizes the extreme gender imbalance of early Johannesburg—noting that with "only one woman to every twenty men," any woman living an "Arcadian existence in tents" was instantly swarmed by colonial officers, troopers, and "young Johannesburg bloods" eager to give unsolicited advice on pitching camp.

The Wild West Atmosphere of the Witwatersrand

Maturin’s observations provide an incredibly vivid, raw look at the social realities of the Reef during the reconstruction era. She balanced the romanticism of sleeping under the stars with the stark, often dangerous realities of a gold-rush society. In one entry from late 1904, she dryly notes the bizarre real estate market in a small village outside Johannesburg, writing:

"There is a scramble for it because it is so safe... so far, they have only had one murder, one house blown up by dynamite, another set fire to by a man who had insured it... and four housebreakings by Chinese in four months."

Spine faded; foxed; minor edge wear.

160mm x 230mm x 45mm

R1,250