Verney Lovett Cameron (Commandant V

Verney Lovett Cameron – Through Africa: Voyage from Zanzibar to Benguela – Hachette, 1878 First edition in French of one of the great bibliographic landmarks of nineteenth-century African exploration, translated by Mme. H. Loreau with the author’s direct authorization. Commander Verney Lovett Cameron (1844–1894), initially commissioned by the Royal Navy to assist David Livingstone, completed between 1873 and 1875 the historic feat of being the first European to traverse equatorial Africa on foot from east to west, from the Zanzibar coast in the Indian Ocean to Benguela in the Atlantic. Collation and graphical apparatus: - Complete work with its VIII + 544 pages of dense text on period paper. - Dimensions: 24 × 16 cm (grand in-8 format). - Portrait of the author in explorer attire engraved as the frontispiece. - 139 wood engravings in text and on full page that document geography, fauna, weapons, ethnic groups, and tribal customs. - 4 folding plates with exact historical facsimiles: the manuscript letter from Jacob Wainwright notifying the death of David Livingstone (October 1873), slave trade document, Cameron’s logbook, and a letter in Arabic script. - 1 large folding map at the end (Carte de la route suivie à travers l’Afrique) showing the complete itinerary alongside its transversal topographic profile. Library binding: - Magnificent full leather binding (red morocco/chagrin) inscribed at the base of the spine by the renowned Paris binder “Ch. Magnier, Rel.”. - Spine with four decorative raised bands with rich compartments of gilded tooling and florets, author and title in fine gold. - Panels decorated with perimeter fillets and monogram “J. C.” on the front cover. Three covers fully gilt. Condition: - Solid and lustrous binding with sharp corners and tight boards. - Clean block of pages, with light age foxing in the preliminaries. - All 4 facsimiles are intact. - The large final folding map is complete and undamaged in its outline, showing slight creases from opening and an old consolidation with period tape on its left margin (Atlantic coast). Collector’s copy.

Estimate:$1.12

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