Lake Ngami; Or, Explorations and Discoveries During Four Years' Wanderings in the Wilds of Southwestern Africa by Andersson, Charles John - 1857

New York: Harper & Brothers. Very Good-. 1857. Hardcover. The first and most famous of four books published by Andersson. According to Czech "This famous early volume of African travel and sport details the author's expeditions to Ovampoland...and then to Lake Ngami." Czech calls it "A cornerstone book of African hunting in the mid-19th century." "Cornerstone book" is the highest praise Czech seems to give a book in his bibliography. The true first edition of this title was published in 1856 in London by Hurst. The US First Edition was published by Harper in 1856. Harper published a second printing in 1857. Other US publishers including Dix and J. W. Bradley also published reprints in 1857 and later. Listings for the UK first should be priced significantly higher than US firsts because the UK first is larger with significantly better illustrations, although the US Harper printings do contain illustrations. This listing is for the Harper second printing of 1857. It is bound in blue cloth instead of brown, it is otherwise the same as the first. Bound in blue cloth with gold decorations on both front and rear covers and gilded spine titles. Gold hippo on front cover and rhino on rear cover bright. Spine titles a bit dulled. Spine a bit slanted. Top right corner of front cover soiled and darkened. Rubbing to all corners and both ends of spine with some loss of cloth. Endpapers badly age spotted. Frontispiece and full title page moderately age spotted, only occasional age spotting to text and illustrations. There are numerous illustrations throughout the text. Includes a General Index, a Latin Index, and 2 pages of publisher's ads. Ships same or next business day well protected in a box. ; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 521 pages .