Stanley, Sir Henry Morton (1841-1904)
In Darkest Africa, or the Quest, Rescue, and Retreat of Emin, Governor of Equatoria.
London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington Ltd., 1890.
Signed limited edition with two Stanley letters inserted; bound in two large quarto volumes, illustrated throughout with six etchings by George Montbard (1841-1905) signed in pencil, mounted frontispieces in each volume, fine woodcut engraved text illustrations printed on india paper and mounted, four chromolithographic maps and plans, the two large folding maps dissected and mounted on linen; signed by Stanley on limitation page in the first volume; with two signed letters from 1890 and 1891 addressed to Silas Burroughs pasted to back free endleaf and inside back board; the volumes bound in publisher's half dark brown morocco and parchment-covered boards, gilt-stamped, and housed in custom buckram chemises and slipcase, some staining to top edge, volume one, affecting approximately 100 pages; 11 1/2 x 9 in. (2)
Copy number 194 of 250 with two signed letters inserted, both addressed to Silas Mainville Burroughs (1846-1895), founder of Burroughs Wellcome & Co., pharmaceutical suppliers and importers. Burroughs named his son Stanley in honor of the explorer. Stanley himself, born illegitimately as John Rowlands and abandoned as an infant by his mother, was passed around to relatives and eventually housed in the St. Asaph Union Workhouse for the Poor. At eighteen, he emigrated to America, fought in the Civil War, worked as a journalist, and discovered his love of exotic adventuring. Finding David Livingstone made him famous.The present work documents the controversial Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, the largest and best-equipped expedition to Africa achieved by Europeans at the time, but notorious for its colonial agenda, high death toll, and abuse of native peoples.
