THE SHIFTING SANDS OF ALGERIA

London: Arrowsmith, 1924. First edition. With 79 photographs by the author. 8vo, publisher’s original red cloth, gilt-lettered on the spine, gilt pictorial decoration on the upper cover. 307. A very fine copy, very bright and very clean. SCARCE FINE EDITION OF A WORK BY A RENOWNED PHOTOGRAPHER OF AFRICAN SUBJECTS. Kearton was a prolific wildlife photographer, well-known for books such as WILDLIFE ACROSS AFRICA, THROUGH CENTRAL AFRICA FROM EAST TO WEST, and IN THE LAND OF THE LION. SHIFTING SANDS came during the prime of his career and marks twenty years after his first visit to Algeria and the Sahara. In this text he weaves accounts of cities with descriptions of the local fauna, equally entranced with the people and the wildlife. His expert photographs complement his descriptions splendidly. Above all, his adoration for the place runs throughout the text: “But apart altogether from any special features, the Desert itself is to me something vastly mysterious, a thing that in some indefinable way draws me to it. I love it at dawn and dusk, I love it in the daytime as it lies immense and incandescent under the burning sun. At night, when the moon is shining and the stars are brilliant in the sky, it brings to me as few other things on earth can do, a feeling of infinite and perfect peace.”
A fine copy of this scarce Africana.