From: Wilhelm HI Bleek (05 March 1875)

From: Wilhelm HI Bleek (05 March 1875)

Correspondence

A letter from Wilhelm Bleek to the South African Public Library Committee, dated 5 March 1875. Bleek urgently requests assistance to complete copying the inventory, especially the sections on African language books and old manuscripts, which remain uncopied. The Committee had advised binding a copy rather than printing it, but since no complete copy yet exists, binding was impossible. Mr Allmann, assigned to copy parts under the Committee's direction, has left. Bleek urges haste as the "sharp symptoms of illness", which incapacitated him for much of the previous year, show him "too clearly with what little certaintly I can reckon upon a prolonged usefulness". If the inventory is not soon copied under his supervision, a great deal of completed work will be lost. Bleek died a few months later on 17 August 1875.

05 March 1875

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1. Note across top of letter: "Copy, made for Sir George Grey, Sept 10/75, of one of the last letters addressed to the SA Public Library Committee". 2. Mr Allmann was Mr Maskew's assistant in the SA Public Library [see C10.18]. 3. For a short summary of this letter, see Dr OH Spohr's typewritten notes on Wilhelm Bleek's letters to Sir George Grey (C10.19.1-26).