A Dictionary of South African English On Historical Principles: South African Words and Their Origins.

MANDELA, Nelson.

Item Number: 3080

New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Signed Limited edition of the first dictionary of South African English, a project that took 25 years to complete.. One of 100 copies signed by Nelson Mandela. This is number 18.  Quarto, original blue morocco with gilt titles to the spine and front panel. Marbled endpapers. Fine in a fine slipcase. Rare and desirable.

As is noted in the dictionary's preface, A Dictionary of South African English was "...begun in 1969 during the height of the apartheid era. The dictionary records the vocabulary of English in South Africa over 300 years: from the late sixteenth to the late twentieth century. The work was completed at the end of 1994, the year of the country's first democratic elections." The signed limited edition was published as a gift to supporters of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund.