The Adventures and Misadventures of Peter Beard in Africa

(New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1993) 0821219073. 4to; original tan cloth, lettered in black on spine; laminated pictorial dustwrapper, housed in removable protector; pictorial endpapers; pp. (viii) + 199; profusely illustrated, largely in monochrome, with some full-colour plates. Dustwrapper sunned on spine panel; some fox spots to top edge. Very good condition. "The Adventures and Misadventures of Peter Beard in Africa is part biography, part social history. Beard's dramatic life has been matched lockstep by the dramas that have been transforming East Africa since his arrival. From his front-row seat--Hog Ranch, his 45-acre encampment overlooking the Ngong Hills--he has watched a land of hunters and nomads become an urbanized sprawl, where the annihilation of animal populations has been matched only by the uncontrolled growth of the human population. Beard has been a player in this drama--he has risked beating and imprisonment at the hands of the local government and political confrontation with international organizations. Throughout, he has remained a charismatic and controversial character. His life, and Hog Ranch, are filled with glamorous figures: he was friend to Karen Blixen, confidant of Francis Bacon and Andy Warhol, discoverer of the model Iman. His story, as told here by Jon Bowermaster, is ultimately East Africa's story--a look into a world irrevocably changed. Bowermaster's searching text and Beard's own classic and unpublished photographs give shape and texture to both this intriguing man and the country that is his passion." .