[Rarebooks] fa: NARRATIVE OF TRAVELS AND DISCOVERIES IN NORTHERN AND CENTRAL AFRICA - 1826

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, March 24. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/y24pehjx

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


Dixon Denham and Hugh Clapperton: Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa, in the Years 1822, 1823, and 1824, by Major Dixon, Captain Clapperton, and the late Doctor Oudney, Extending across the Great Desert to the Tenth Degree of Northern Latitude, and from Kouka in Bornu, to Sackatoo, the Capital of the Fellatah Empire. With an Appendix... London: John Murray, 1826. First edition. Two parts in one volume. Large 4to (26 x 21 cm) in early/period straight-grained morocco, neatly rebacked with the original spine laid down, fresh endpapers, marbled page edges; xlviii, 335, [5], 269, [1] pp.; large folding map, woodcut vignettes, and 36 (of 37) engraved plates, one of which is colored, with tissue guards; with an additional colored plate from the French edition bound in at the front. Lowndes I, p.629.

PRESENTATION COPY, inscribed by Denham (inscription partially obscured by something formerly tipped on to the head of the title-page). Binding with some rubbing and wear, bumping to the corners; inner hinges professionally reinforced; contents with light toning and offsetting, occasional modest spotting to the plates, mostly relegated to the margins; else quite clean and sound, firmly bound. Lacking one plate (no. 39), which appears never to have been bound in, but with an extra colored plate ("Guerrier Mangowien") from the French edition of the same year.

First edition of this account of one of the more star-crossed of African journeys of exploration. In addition to the usual travails besetting such a venture (malaria, sandstorms, local conflicts, a horrific desert crossing, etc.), the expedition was severely hampered by the mutual loathing of the two leading participants, Denham even going so far as to send home malicious, and almost certainly false, reports that Clapperton had had a homosexual dalliance with an Arab servant. This act of spite appears to have been characteristic of the major: "It remains difficult to recall in all the checkered history of geographic discovery... a more odious man than Dixon Denham" (E.W. Bovill, Missions to the Niger, vols. II-IV, The Bornu Mission 1822-25. Cambridge.)

Seeking to discover the source of the Niger River, Denham and Clapperton, in the company of Dr. Walter Oudney, travelled from Benioleed, near Tripoli, almost due south, with excursions to the mountains west of Mourzuk, in Fezzan, and to the Ghat oasis, until, on February 17, 1823, they became the first Europeans to see Lake Chad. While Dixon remained to survey Lake Chad, vainly seeking the source of the Niger, Clapperton and Dr. Oudney set out westward to Murmur, where Oudney died. Clapperton continued alone through Kano to Sokoto, the capital of the Fula Empire, where by order of the Sultan he was obliged to stop, though the Niger was only five days' journey to the west. He rejoined Denham and they returned to Tripoli in January, 1825, and from there to England, the two men reportedly not speaking a word to each other during the 133-day journey home. Within two years of the book’s publication, both men would die in Africa, Denham from "African fever" in Sierra Leone, and Clapperton from dysentery in Sokoto (Nigeria). "The most interesting and important work yet published on the subject of African researches" (Lowndes). The plates are from original drawings by Denham and Clapperton, handsomely engraved by Edward Finden, arguably the finest, and certainly one of the most famous English steel engravers of the time.