author
James A. Honey
b. 1880
Best known for gathering South African folk tales into a single early-20th-century collection, this writer helped preserve stories shaped by oral tradition, animal tricksters, and local legend. His work still offers a lively doorway into the storytelling culture of southern Africa.
1 Audiobook
South-African Folk-Tales
by James A. Honey
About the author
James A. Honey, sometimes listed as James A. Hone or James Albert Honeij, is associated with the 1910 book South-African Folk-Tales. Catalog records and ebook editions connect him with a birth year of 1880, but clear biographical details beyond that are hard to confirm.
In the book's introduction, he presents himself less as a formal scholar than as someone with a personal South African connection and a deep interest in the region's storytelling traditions. The collection brings together animal stories, legends, and moral tales, helping preserve folklore that had been passed along in spoken form and, in some cases, translated or adapted from earlier sources.
Because reliable personal information about him is scarce, he is remembered mainly through this book rather than through a well-documented public life. For readers today, his lasting significance is as a compiler who helped carry South African folk narratives to a wider English-speaking audience.