Travels in West Africa.
by Mary Kingsley
- Used
- Fine
- Hardcover
- Condition
- Fine
- Seller
-
Scarborough , North Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
In a fitted box. Cream cloth binding with an all over greenish image of passenger river boat. Gilt title on the spine.
Mary Kingsley's "Travels in West Africa" has become a classic, and deservedly so. Mary Henrietta Kingsley was an English ethnographic and scientific writer and explorer whose travels throughout West Africa and resulting work helped shape European perceptions of African cultures and British imperialism. After a preliminary visit to the Canary Islands, Kingsley decided to travel to the west coast of Africa. The only non-African women who regularly embarked on journeys to Africa were usually the wives of missionaries, government officials, or explorers. Exploration and adventure were not seen as fitting roles for women in the Victorian era. Yet, when Mary Kingsley's invalid parents died within six weeks of each other, she followed in her explorer father's footsteps and travelled to Africa against her society's every convention. Here is her lively and witty account of that journey, an immediate bestseller when it first came out in 1897 and every bit as gripping today. Kingsley's complicated and indomitable character shines through in each sentence, as she describes hacking, marching, and climbing her way through the continent. After more than a century, she remains a feminist icon and a most remarkable woman.
Synopsis
Supported by a family inheritance that gave her £500 a year, Mary Henrietta Kingsley traveled to Africa to complete the book her father had started. The subject was the culture of Africa and Kingsley stayed with local people while she learned to survive in the African jungles, studied cannibal tribes, discovered new species of fish, and climbed Mount Cameroon by a route untouched by any European before her. Kingsley's ideas greatly influenced European ideas about Africa and the African people and her 1897 account, Travels in West Africa, quickly became a best-seller.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Martin Frost (GB)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- FB1227 /27*
- Title
- Travels in West Africa.
- Author
- Mary Kingsley
- Book Condition
- Used - Fine
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Publisher
- The Folio Society.
- Place of Publication
- London
- Date Published
- 1976
- Size
- 18x26x3cm
- Weight
- 0.00 lbs
Terms of Sale
Martin Frost
About the Seller
Martin Frost
About Martin Frost
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Gilt
- The decorative application of gold or gold coloring to a portion of a book on the spine, edges of the text block, or an inlay in...
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...