EMILY HOBHOUSE. BELOVED TRAITOR. BY ELSABE BRITS IN SOUTH AFRICA

2016. Firm soft cover. 336 pages. Very good condition: tightly bound, neat and clean. Parcel over 1kg. Elsabe Brits, a journalist, had the good luck and dogged determination to track down the personal papers of Emily Hobhouse on Vancouver Island, Canada. This was a scoop for a journalist with a flair for spotting a good story. A brilliant treasure trove of Hobhouse material, archival records, family memorabilia, diaries, letters, scrapbooks and photographs were contained in a trunk and some boxes owned by Jennifer Hobhouse Balme, the granddaughter of Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse, the younger brother of Emily Hobhouse. This was indeed a phenomenal find and the author travelled far in search of her bonanza and was duly rewarded. Brits was given the rights to draw on and reproduce this material in this new fresh biography of Emily Hobhouse. This book tells the story of Emily’s life and takes the reader beyond the Boer War and the South African connections. Emily Hobhouse achieved fame and notoriety; but how do you measure those highlights of her work during the Boer war with a later life that seemed to be seeking a replay, and fresh notoriety. Here was a woman who amid the public acclaim also stirred controversy. Her causes were sometimes questionable.