The Abyssinian Expedition and the Life and Reign of King Theodore

Description:

With one hundred illustrations engraved from originals by special artists and correspondents of the Illustrated London News. In this work Roger Curtis Acton (1827-1906), British journalist and early member of the Royal Colonial Institute, presents a detailed narrative of the British Expedition to Abyssinia (1868) and a biographical account of Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia (then commonly referred to as Theodore).

The expedition, mounted as both a rescue and punitive operation, followed the imprisonment by Tewodros of missionaries and British envoys in an attempt to compel military aid from Britain. Under the command of General Sir Robert Napier, a formidable force was transported hundreds of miles across roadless, mountainous terrain, an engineering feat in itself, before defeating Tewodros’s forces in every engagement, storming the fortress of Magdala, and liberating the captives. As British troops closed in, the Emperor took his own life with a pistol once presented to him by Queen Victoria.

Lavishly illustrated and vividly reported, Acton’s work captures what Harold G. Marcus would later describe as “one of the most expensive affairs of honour in history.” (The Life and Times of Menelik II: Ethiopia, 1844-1913. 1995).

An important work on this remarkable, if often overlooked, Victorian military campaign.

Condition

Fo. (450x320mm), orig. pictorial, red cloth bevelled boards, blind-stamped decorative border, with gilt-blocked illustration of an expedition elephant carrying canon to front board, bevelled edges, aeg, recased and recently rebacked in matching cloth, gt title to spine, new endpapers. Small, faint marginal stain to upper, inner corner of final fourteen pages. Cont. gift inscription to flyleaf. A very good copy.