Sir Garnet Wolseley’s South African Diaries (Natal) 1875

Hardcover with dust jacket, 293 pages, 7x10 in - 18x25 cm, B&W plates.

Brodart-wrapped jacket lightly worn along edges; jacket spine sunned.

This 18 x 25 cm (7 x 10 in) volume presents the 1875 diaries of Sir Garnet Wolseley, a British army officer who served throughout the British empire (including in Canada’s North-West). In 1875, Wolseley was appointed Governor of Natal, a colony in what is now South Africa. Written over the course of six months, Wolseley’s journals vent frustrations with political administrators, describe formal soirees, remark on local customs, and trace his journeys in the region. Throughout, the entries offer a mix of personal reflections, ethnographic descriptions, and colonial administration. Adrian Preston provides a lengthy introduction – nearly half of the book – to contextualize Wolseley’s journals, including an analysis of Wolseley’s 1870 leadership of an expeditionary force in the Red River conflict between the Canadian government and the Métis.