author

James A. Honey

b. 1880

Drawn to the rich storytelling traditions of southern Africa, this early 20th-century collector gathered animal tales, legends, and folk narratives into a lively single volume. His best-known work opens a small window onto how these stories were remembered, translated, and passed along.

1 Audiobook

South-African Folk-Tales

South-African Folk-Tales

by James A. Honey

About the author

James A. Honey is known for South-African Folk-Tales, published in New York in 1910. Library records for that edition identify him as James Albert Honeij, born in 1880, and the book itself presents him as "James A. Honeÿ, M.D."

In the introduction, he explains that the collection brings together tales from earlier English sources, Dutch translations, and stories recalled from childhood. He says he was driven by a "South-African-born interest" in the folklore of the region and aimed to preserve the stories in a form close to their originals while focusing especially on animal tales.

Little else about his life was clearly confirmed in the sources reviewed here, so his surviving reputation rests mainly on this book and its lasting place in collections of South African folklore.