COOMASSIE: The Story of The Campaign In Africa 1878-4, Being the First Part of the Original Volume entitled ‘Coomassie and Magdala’

London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co, 1896. First Edition in separate form. With numerous illustrations from drawings by Melton Prior (special artist in Ashantee of the illustrated London news) and other artists, and a map. Small 8vo, original maroon textured cloth, lettered in gilt on the spine, with triple blind rules on the covers. vii, map, 212 pp. A very attractive copy, with only a touch of mellowing to the spine panel. Internally bright and clean, with occasional partial stamping to four of the page edges. A VERY SCARCE TITLE A very scarce title in the Stanley oeuvre. Marvelous illustrations throughout with vivid scenes of native life, costume, landscape, and culture.
COOMASSIE AND MAGDALA is the story of the great British campaigns in East and West Africa. Here COOMASSIE is published for the first time in one volume of its own, a complete account of the British Campaign with some superb illustrations. Stanley wrote his description while a Special Correspondent of the New York Herald.
“Coomassie was a town insulated by a deadly swamp. A thick jungly forest - so dense that the sun seldom pierced the foliage; so sickly that the strongest fell victims to the malaria it cherished - surrounded it to a depth of 140 miles seaward, many hundred miles east, as many more west, and 100 miles north. Through this forest and swamp, unrelieved by a single novelty or a single pretty landscape, the British army had to march...” Henry Stanley, from his preface.