Henry Barth. Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa: Being a Journal of an Expedition Undertaken Unde... (Total: 5 Items)

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Sixty Tinted Lithographs

Henry Barth. Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa: Being a Journal of an Expedition Undertaken Under the Auspices of H. B. M.'s Government, in the years 1849-1855. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1857, 1858.

First edition in English. Five octavo volumes. xxxvi, 578; xi, 676; xi, 635; xiv, 641; 694 pages. Errata, ads, index. Fifteen maps. Sixty tinted engraved plates, including frontispieces. Over a hundred woodcuts.

Original green cloth over boards. Gilt lettering to spines. Hinges cracked, but bindings tight. Some splitting of the cloth at the joints of three of the volumes. Volumes II and III missing half-titles (common with this set). Bookplates of a previous owner on the front pastedowns. Rubber stamp to front free endpapers showing the books to be withdrawn from HM Stationery Office. Plates and maps clean and bright. Overall, a very good set.

This English-language translation came out at the same time as the German edition, using the same illustrations. "Henry Barth stands in the first rank of the very great explorers, a class which should perhaps include Mungo Park, Livingston, Stanley, Speke and Grant, Burton, Baker, Schweinfürth, Nachtigal, Rohlfs, Jünker, and Joseph Thomson; men who have not only made great geographical discoveries but who have enriched us as well with information which clothes the dry bones of the mere delineation of rivers, lakes, and mountains" (A History of the Colonization of Africa by Alien Races, by Harry Johnston). From the Professor John Ralph Willis Collection of Rare Africana.

Abbey, 274. Gay, 207. Ibrahim-Hilmy, I, 53. Johnston, 207.