CURIOSITIES OF SAVAGE LIFE: FIRST SERIES

London, England: S.O. Beeton. (Printed by Stephen Austin), 1863. Hardcover. Good Plus. 418 pp., plus 8 pp.advertisements at rear. Red stamped and engraved boards with large, bright gilt graphic to front board depicting a loinclothed native,wielding a spear, and the entire spine taken up with engravings, and designs, heavy on the gilt. Rubbing to extremities with 1/4 inch loss of cloth across top of spine. All edges gilt. Hinges both started, but book very solidly bound. Chocolate brown endpapers, with bookseller's ticket (W. Bones & Son, Fleet St.) to bottom of rear pastedown. With numerous woodcuts and designs by Harden S. Melville; Engraved by H. Newsom Woods, and six, full-page colour illustrations from water-colour drawings by F.W. Keyl and R. Huttula.

This is the colonial, ethnocentric, supercilious culture at its worst, and Greenwood concentrates on the extremes of sensationalism (blood rituals, coming-of-age bloody floggings, horrible live-slaughtering of animals, etc.), which would disgust and really probably thrill the genteel sons of Capital. "...The plan I propose to adopt in this volume is to take Savage lifefrom its beginning to its ending; to peep into the savage baby's cradle in whatever part of the world it is to be found, to take an interest in his boyhood...to look over his shoulder while he is at his lessons; to watch him at his games, andmake inventory of h is toys. ...it is my intention to accompany him on his sweethearting excursions, to listen to his love songs and to the soft things he whispers into La Belle Sauvage's be-ringed or be-skewered ear..." (P. 3).

Had enough? Well here's a bit more:

"...While we sat down at our well-ordered breakfast tables, legions of our savage brethren were devouring the flesh of the elephant, and the shark, and the ponderous manatee, and the nimble monkey, together with insects that fly and insects that creep and grubs that live at the roots of the weeds..." (P. 3)

"In whatever region he may be found, the savage is never particularly partial to hard work..." (P. 97).