JAVA
FACTS AND FANCIES

AUGUSTA DE WIT

LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL
1905

First English edition. In rare variant binding with the authors name misspelt on the binding (De Witt) but correct on the title page.
When Augusta de Wit toured Java in the she found not only "the airy fancies, the legends and the dreams" but also "a busy manufacturing country, prosperous and prosaic." In fact she arrived during a crucial phase of the island's development, when the colonial Dutch regime had just embarked on its "Ethical Policy" not only to repay its "debt of honour" to an impoverished peasantry but also to facilitate the interests of modern capitalism. An illuminating record of her observations of both the Javanese aristocracy and peasantry, Java, through numerous illustrations, presents an important social document and a fascinating narrative account of a society in transition.

CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
FIRST GLIMPSES
A BATAVIA HOTEL
THE TOWN
A COLONIAL HOME
SOCIAL LIFE
GLIMPSES OF NATIVE LIFE
ON THE BEACH
OF BUITENZORG
IN THE HILL COUNTRY
IN THE DESSA
EPILOGUE

22 x 14 cm. 332 pp. With 160 illustrations. Top edge gilt.

Very good condition. Cloth dulled on the spine and worn at the ends. Endpapers age tanned, pages clean and bright, binding firm.