[Rarebooks] fa: [CONGO FREE STATE] LE CONGO ILLUSTRE 1892-95 - 4 Folio Vols./Complete w/ Maps & Supplements

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, October 18. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

https://tinyurl.com/y4fwcle6

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Alphonse-Jules Wauters [ed.]: Le Congo Illustre. Voyages et travaux des Belges dans l'etat Independant du Congo. Premiere annee 1892 [-Quatrieme annee 1895]. Bruxelles: Administration & redaction (P. Weissenbruch, Imprimeur du Roi), 1892-95. First edition. Four volumes (all published); folio (33.5 x 25.5 cm) in half crimson goatskin and marbled boards; 223, 224, 216, 211 pp.; with the half-titles and volume titles, full-page lithograph and photographic plates, in-text maps, photos and illustrations, vignettes, musical notation; plus a two-page (folding) map and another large folding map in color.

A complete run of all four years of this richly illustrated periodical, including the illustrated prospectus and subscription form for Theodore Masui's D'Anvers a Banzyville, issued as a supplement to the June 3, 1894, number; the two-page map ("La campagne arabe du Manyema") issued as a supplement to the February 24, 1895, number; and the large color folding map of the region offered as a bonus to subscribers ("prime offerte aux abonnes du Mouvement Geographique et du Congo Illustre"). Bindings with some wear to the edges, corners and extremities; a trace of mustiness; mild toning to the leaves, most noticeable at the edges, a few occasional light spots, two short closed tears to the margins of the large color map, else clean and sound, firmly bound.

The edifying, official and royally sanctioned view of the so-called Congo Free State, the private fiefdom of King Leopold II of Belgium that would soon be exposed as a hellhole of barbarity, cruelty and exploitation by the likes of Roger Casement and Joseph Conrad. The two men had met and shared lodgings in 1890 at Matadi, before Conrad headed upriver into the "heart of darkness" (the river port of Matadi is pictured and described in detail in these volumes, published only two years after their meeting). Despite its imperialist point of view, this is an important and well-illustrated resource, with much on the region's railroads, colonial administration, exploration, geography and topography, flora and fauna, indigenous peoples and customs, tattooing, etc., etc. Uncommon as a complete set, especially so with the supplements.