Name: Jock of the Bushveld
ISBN: 9780868520582

Percy Fitzpatrick

Edmund G. Caldwell

Jock's owner was a young transport rider in the rugged and colorful days of the Transvaal gold rush. Those were the days when big game roamed the land and each sunrise brought a new adventure.

Jock of the Bushveld

I was in Johannesburg recently & this book seemed to follow me, it was revered as a “South African classic” written in 1907 so I thought it would be a book to get a sense of the gold rush. 

Given it is a book of a particular time, I kept this in mind before delving in. While it claims that it’s a children’s book, it should be considered a hunting book as every chapter was just like the other - hunting escapades abound and it felt very repetitive. For some, it may be considered animal cruelty. 

The editor states that “prejudicial racial references have been eliminated” there is still a lot of racist material that remains, with stereotypical & racist depictions of Zulus and brutal scenes of racist violence towards Africans, I can only imagine how the original version reads. 

After years of dedication from Jock, only to be abandoned by his owner & live miserably afterwards, says more about the writer than he may have thought. 

Not a very memorable book & not well written, it leaves me wondering to whom is this a classic for. 

Aisha Mugo

I was in Johannesburg recently & this book seemed to follow me, it was revered as a “South African classic” written in 1907 so I thought it would be a book to get a sense of the gold rush. 

Given it is a book of a particular time, I kept this in mind before delving in. While it claims that it’s a children’s book, it should be considered a hunting book as every chapter was just like the other - hunting escapades abound and it felt very repetitive. For some, it may be considered animal cruelty. 

The editor states that “prejudicial racial references have been eliminated” there is still a lot of racist material that remains, with stereotypical & racist depictions of Zulus and brutal scenes of racist violence towards Africans, I can only imagine how the original version reads. 

After years of dedication from Jock, only to be abandoned by his owner & live miserably afterwards, says more about the writer than he may have thought. 

Not a very memorable book & not well written, it leaves me wondering to whom is this a classic for. 

Jock of the Bushveld

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