Coomassie and Magdala: The Story of two British Campaigns in Africa

Description:

First edition. Accounts of two British campaigns in Africa by Sir Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1904), the British explorer and special correspondent for the New York Herald. Best known for his later expedition to locate Dr. David Livingstone, Stanley began his career covering the African military campaigns of prominent British generals, including Sir Garnet Wolseley and Lord Napier. Wolseley’s Coomassie campaign during the Third Anglo-Ashanti War (1873-1874) involved fierce fighting in the dense jungles of the Gold Coast, West Africa (present-day Ghana). Stanley also reported on Lord Napier’s Abyssinian expedition, which saw thousands of troops traverse uncharted terrain to reach the mountain fortress of Magdala.

Condition

8vo (221x141mm), recased in orig. cloth, rebacked with original lightly worn backstrip laid down, black and gilt-stamped dec. to front board and spine, bevelled boards, original brown endpapers, a little marked, with inner hinges strengthened and repaired. Large folding map with closed tear to inner edge neatly repaired. Some light foxing to endpapers, flyleaves and a few plate margins; occasional isolated spotting or browning elsewhere. From the library of David J. Greathead (1931-2006), with his name to endpaper. A good copy of a book often found in poor condition.