Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Alice (Mary) Havers 1850-190. Ernest Wilson (illustrator). First Edition.  c1887. In decorative card covers, corners and edges bumped. Spine in brown cloth, no title. Internally, 64 pp, 16 full page colour chromolithographs, not dated but c1887. A lovely children's title. (255*191 mm). Boulger [née Havers], Dorothy Henrietta [pseud. Theo Gift], novelist, published two semi-autobiographical work, Lil Lorimer (1885), and Cape Town Dicky (1887/8), illustrated by her sister Alice, written for children and designed to teach a love of animals. 1st Edition..1st Issue scarce in this early format.

Uncommon chromolithographic picture book detailing little Dicky's return to England from South Africa, revealing Victorian-era colonialist culture and racism none of which we condone or support. From referring to Dicky's Black African "servant" Usebi as a racial slur throughout the text to glorifying the British colonial cause, CAPE TOWN DICKY is a confluence of violent attitudes wrapped in a Victorian moralistic children's book. While of interest to scholars, it is not recommended for casual readers