The Natural History of Man: Being an Account of the uncivilised Races of Man. Africa

Large 8vo (26cm), Vol. 1 only, treating of African races. Rebacked in brown half calf with original red, blue and white marbled boards. Five imitation raised bands with gilt tooling and lettering to spine, boards have been reconsolidated around edges, still showing signs of heavy wear and usage. viii + 774pp, richly and graphically illustrated with engravings throughout the text, frontispiece also present. Interally good and generally clean and bright, with occasional stains not affecting the text. Marbled textblock edges lightly soiled and with a few small chips.

John George Wood was an English curate and natural history writer who helped promote the popular 19th-century appeal of his subject. The present work is a weighty, detailed and lavishly illustrated account of the lives and cultures of African human races unknown to most of Western society at the time. Despite being unscientific and controversial for its condescending depiction of uncivilised 'savage' human races, the work had important cultural influence. For example, Mark Twain referenced it in Chapter 19 of his semi-authobiograhical 'Roughing It':

"On the morning of the sixteenth day out from St. Joseph
we arrived at the entrance of Rocky Canyon, two hundred
and fifty miles from Salt Lake. It was along in this
wild country somewhere, and far from any habitation of white men, except the stage stations, that we came across the wretchedest type of mankind I have ever seen, up to this writing. I refer to the Goshoot Indians. From what we could see and all we could learn, they are very considerably inferior to even the despised Digger Indians of California; inferior to all races of savages on our continent; inferior to even the Terra del Fuegans; inferior to the Hottentots, and actually inferior in some respects to the Kytches of Africa. Indeed, I have been obliged to look the bulky volumes of Wood's "Uncivilized Races of Men" clear through in order to find a savage tribe degraded enough to take rank with the Goshoots. I find but
one people fairly open to that shameful verdict. It is the Bosjesmans (Bushmen) of South Africa. Such of the Goshoots as we saw, along the road and hanging about the stations, were small, lean, "scrawny" creatures; in complexion a dull black like the ordinary American negro; their faces and hands bearing dirt which they had been hoarding and accumulating for months, years, and even generations, according to the age of the proprietor; a silent, sneaking, treacherous looking race; taking note of everything, covertly, like all the other "Noble Red Men" that we (do not) read about, and betraying no sign in
their countenances; indolent, everlastingly patient and tireless, like all other Indians; prideless beggars—for if the beggar instinct"

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