[Rarebooks] FS: Richard F. Burton's The Lake Regions of Central Africa: A Picture of Exploration (2 Vols.)

[Ezra Tishman]

Ezra from Aardvark offers this lovely two-volume set of what has arguably been deemed Richard F. Burton’s best written and most enjoyable account of exploration and adventure.


Burton, Richard. THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA : A PICTURE OF EXPLORATION (2
VOLUMES, COMPLETE). London.: Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts, 1860. First Edition. Octavos. Handsome
half-leather over lovely brick red, navy blue, mauve, and mustard stone marbled boards (and matching endpapers), and
marbled edges. Stamped toothed pattern to leather spine and corners, where they meet boards. Five raised bands (six compartments, each double ruled
in gilt), each with central gilt floriated design, bordered by filigree. Recent leather spine labels, in red and black ,the upper red
labels with abbreviated titles, the lower black labels with author's name and volume numbers in Roman numerals.
Volume I contains 6 (blue, black and brown tinted) chromoxylographs and 8 woodcuts; 

Ex-Libris label affixed to front pastedown endpaper of William Roy Smith
and Marion Parris Smith. William raised the ire of W.E.B. DuBois who accused him of writing (in Smith's essay "Negro Suffrage in the South”), published in Studies in Southern History and Politics (1914), ... that the disenfranchisement of Black voters had been necessary in the late 19th century, but looked forward to a time when ;a steadily increasing number of negroes, who are qualified by intelligence and character, will be readmitted to the voting ranks'. Smith's justifications for post-Reconstruction disenfranchisement led W. E. B. Du Bois <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._E._B._Du_Bois> to list him in Black Reconstruction <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Reconstruction> (1935) among authors [that] believe the Negro to be sub-human and congenitally unfitted for citizenship and the suffrage;.” (Wikipedia)
Both Smiths were faculty members at Bryn Mawr College, William an historian, and Marion an economist who also authored several books touching on economics, politics, philosophy and art.

Volume II lacks one image — the frontis "Navigation of the Tanganyika Lake”. Foldout map at rear of Volume II present. 
Two pages in preliminaries of book. show darkening at margins.

Burton was a legendary 19th-century explorer and multi-lingual polymath who wrote volumes about his travels and
adventures, never dull, and often harrowing, These volumes cover travels from England to Bombay through Zanzibar and
other locales, which occurred between September of 1856 and May of 1859.

Burton was never one to whitewash the darker or even tawdry side of places and peoples and customs and events he
encountered, voicing a commitment to portraying the entire picture of the places he visited. Burton writes (in the preface):
"With deference to the readers judgment, I venture to express a hope that whatever of unrefinement appears in these pages,
may be charged to the subject...I have shirked nothing of the unpleasant task, -- of recording processes and not only results; I
have entered into the recital of the maladies, the weary squabbles, and the vast variety of petty troubles, without which the
coup d'oeil of African adventure would be more like a Greek Saint in effigy-- all lights and no shade -- than the chapter of
accidents which it now is…”    The preface also contains a fiery denuciation of Speke for what Burton judged his attempt to steal the laurels of the discovery of the
Nile. Speke fatally shot himself before his debate with Burton.


A lovely, and eminently affordable copy of one of Burton's most thoroughly enjoyable adventures. Very Good. Leather-bound.
 $2400

Pictures:

              https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wlzom9lgc32a708/AADfKu0GFbwrku227yXgwCKba?dl=0 


Thanks for looking!


Ezra




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