"FOR 160 DAYS WE MARCHED THROUGH THE FOREST, BUSH AND JUNGLE… NOTHING BUT MILES AND MILES, ENDLESS MILES OF FOREST"

STANLEY, Henry M. In Darkest Africa, or the Quest, Rescue and Retreat of Emin Governor of Equatoria. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1890. Two volumes. Octavo, original full brown morocco gilt, raised bands, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. $4000.

First American edition of this classic 19th-century account of African exploration, with three large folding color maps (in pockets of both volumes), 38 full-page plates and numerous in-text portraits and illustrations. A splendid copy in the publisher's deluxe full morocco bindings.

Perhaps no adventurer is more closely connected with Africa than Lord Stanley, whose various expeditions did more to reveal the nature of that continent than any modern explorer. His 1887 mission to relieve the besieged governor of Egypt, his last mission to Africa, ended miserably when Stanley arrived only to learn that the governor did not care to be relieved, but instead was angry at the Englishman for interfering in his affairs. This account contains the harrowing details of Stanley's journey through the nearly impenetrable Ituri, or Great Congo, Forest, which he traversed not once but three times over the course of his travels. The conditions were brutal; sometimes the expedition could achieve no more than three or four hundred yards an hour. Along the way Stanley compiled important data on the Pygmies and discovered the Ruwenzori, or "Mountains of the Moon." The perilous journey nearly cost Stanley his life, and only a third of the men with whom he set out returned alive. Published in the same year as the London first edition. See Hoskin, 189. Ink gift inscription, dated in the year of publication.

A splendid copy in fine condition, most desirable in publisher's deluxe morocco.