Livingstone, David

Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa Including a Sketch of Sixteen Years Residence in the Interior of Africa

Hardcover, London: John Murray, 1857. First Edition. Very Good. Royal Octavo, pp ix, 687. Frontispiece fold-out tinted lithograph of Victoria Falls, 22 black and white plates, 2 tinted lithograph plates, 23 illustrations in the text, 1 fold-out elevation of South Africa, 2 fold-out maps. Bound in contemporary half-leather binding with marbled paper covered boards. Previous owner bookplate on front pastedown, previous owner gift inscription dated 1859 on first free endpaper. Rubbing to covers, leather binding cracked on outer hinge, binding sound. Czech says of this book "Perhaps the most famous of all African exploration books..." Czech notes that although Livingstone did not consider himself a sportsman, this book contains descriptions of numerous sporting incidents with hunts after lions, buffalo, elephant, and a variety of plains game. Mendelssohn tells us that Livingstone was in Africa from 1840 until July 12, 1856. Together with his wife and Oswell and Murray, Livingstone was the first European to see Lake N'gami. With Oswell he discovered the Zambesi. He sent his family home in 1852 and continued to travel and explore, naming Victoria Falls in late 1854. A very famous book with entries in Czech, Mendelssohn, Abbey, Howgego, etc. The printing history of Missionary Travels is quite complicated. There are at least 11 variants of the first edition with no known priority. The research into the variants was done in 1973 for the 100th anniversary of Livingstone's death. No one knows how many variants there are or has any real idea of which, if any, are the first. The existence of the variants is probably explained by the publisher choosing several printers to each print part of the first print run. Each printer seems to have made their own mistakes. As part of his bibliographic research Bradlow contacted many rare book libraries and London rare book dealers. This copy's variant was described by one expert as the first issued variant and by another as the second. Either way, it's probably one of the very first issues of the first edition. ; 8vo 8" - 9" tall. [Item #82566]

Price: $1,650.00