William Charles Scully

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William Charles Scully (October 29,1855-August 25, 1943) is one of South Africa's greatest writers, diarists and poets, although little known outside South Africa. In addition to his work as an author and literary figure, his paid work was principally as a magistrate in Springfontein, South Africa, as well as in Namaqualand and the Transkei.

His novel "Daniel Vananda" was pioneering in the way that it dealt with the racial issues that have been the source of so much anguish in South African history, with its portrayal of the terrible violence engendered by the anti-African legislaion of the time. Similarly, "Kafir Stories" contains stories that are generally sympathetic to the perspective of aboriginal African peoples of South Africa. The South African writer Herman Charles Bosman is said to have hailed William Charles Scully as one of the few South African writers at that time that were worthy of reading.

Scully lived through many of the wide-reaching changes in South africa that transformed little-known or understood British colonial possessions, Boer republics, and African tribal nations into the industrial powerhouse of Sub-Saharan Africa, and yet a country tragically internally torn.

William Charles Scully, born in Dublin, was raised in Cashel, in County Tipperary, then then emigrated with his parents from County Wicklow, Ireland, in 1867, and in 1871 prospected for diamonds with Cecil Rhodes. His daughter, Miriam Power (b.1893), was to marry Sir Martin Ryle, Nobel laureate. He died in Umbogintwini on the Natal South Coast, in 1943, the same year as his wife Nora died.

[edit] Works

His written works include:

Poems, London, Unwin, 1885
The Wreck of the Grosvenor, and other South African poems. South Africa, 1886.
(Anon.) Poems. 1892.
Kafir Stories. (2nd ed.) London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1895 [1]
The White Hecatomb, and other stories. London: Methuen, 1897
Between Sun and Sand: a Tale of an African Desert. 1898.
A Vendetta of the Desert. London: Methuen, 1898
By Veldt and Kopje. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1907
The Ridge of the White Waters: "Witwatersrand", or, Impressions of a Visit to Johannesburg: with some notes of Durban, Delagoa Bay and the low country. London: Stanley Paul, nd (c. 1912)
Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1913
Further Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer. London: T Fisher Unwin, 1913^[1]
Lodges in the Wilderness. London: H. Jenkins, 1915
A History of South Africa: From the earliest days to union. London and New York: Longmans, Green, and Company, 1915
Sir J. H. Meiring Beck: A Memoir compiled by William Charles Scully, with an introduction by John X. Merriman. Cape Town: Maskew Miller, nd (c. 1921)
The Harrow: South Africa, 1900-1902: a novel. Cape Town: De Nationale Pers, 1921
Daniel Vananda: The Life Story of a Human Being. Cape Town: Juta Ltd, 1923
Scapalomine in Africa, or Pharmacy and Politics, Kimberley, Creer & Co., 1937
Voices of Africa, Durban, Knox, 1943

^ "Reminiscences" and "Further Reminiscences" have been re-printed in one volume as "Unconventional Reminiscences" (Penguin Modern Classics series), by Penguin Books (South Africa), 2006, and Penguin Co UK, 2007, ISBN 9780143185468