My African Journey

Published by Hodder & Stoughton, London, UK, 1908. First edition. Original decorative cloth gilt. Size: 13.5cm x 19.4cm. Pp. xiii + 226 + 16pp ads. Includes 47 plates and 3 maps. A documentary account of Britain’s territories in East Africa including Uganda, Egypt, the Sudan and the While Nile. This copy is the scarce Colonial issue of the first edition, denoted by the placement of an asterisk blocked in gilt below the publisher’s name at the base of the spine. The Colonial issue of the first edition numbered no more than 1726 copies out of the 12500 print run. This copy has a small bookseller’s label to the front paste-down denoting that it was sold by J Walch and Sons, Hobart, Tasmania. Books sold in the Colonies were often subject to sun-fading, insect damage and high humidity. This copy is an extraordinary survival in this condition. Binding nice and tight. Minor offsetting to the endpapers either from the presence of a dustwrapper or a protective covering. Pages and edges very nice and clean with none of the foxing which is so often found with this title. Plates and maps very clean and complete. One plate is loose but is entirely undamaged. Cloth very slightly rubbed, marked and frayed to the spine but very clean and bright with only the tiniest amount of the usual fading. Overall this is a very near fine copy of one of the most rare issues of the first edition in exceptional, bright, clean condition. Very scarce thus.