Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa: being a journal of an expedition undertaken under the auspices of H.B.M.'s Government, in the years 1849-1855. In Five Volumes

London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, 1857. First Edition in English. Five uniform octavo volumes (23cm). In the publisher's deep green grain-patterned cloth, blind-embossed on covers, titled in gilt on spines; printed terra-cotta endpapers; xxxvi, 578, [24]ads.; xi, 676; xi, 635; xiv, 641, [24]ads.; xii, 694pp; text illus; fifteen folding maps; one folding woodcut; 60 inserted leaves of lithographic plates after J.M. Bernatz, all tinted. Binder's ticket (Westley's) at base of rear pastedown in first volume. A superb set in the scarce original cloth, with expert repairs to hinges on three volumes and some inconspicuous strengthening to cloth at crown of volume I; complete and quite fresh internally, with the plates vivid and free of foxing or soil; Very Good or better. Printed front and rear endpapers contain publisher's advertisements, including full-page ad for M'Clure's "Discovery of the North-West Passage" on rear pastedown of vols I & II. Engraved bookplate of C.G. Hodgson, Sydney, to the first two volumes.

"One of the greatest of all travel narratives, rich in meticulous detail and exceptional for its accuracy, it survives as a major source book for the history and geography of sub-Saharan West Africa" (HOWGEGO IV:62). Barth also devoted considerable attention to the contemporary West African slave trade, noting in his Preface: "...There can be no doubt that the most horrible topic connected with slavery is slave-hunting...hence it was necessary that I should become acquainted with the real state of these most important features of African society, in order to speak clearly about them...I shall be able, in the third volulme of my narrative, to lay before the public...the domestic happiness of a considerable portion of the human race...as well as the wanton and cruel manner in which this happiness is destroyed, and its peaceful abodes changed into desolation."

There is some question whether the work was first published in German or English; Howgego asserts the latter; Abbey claims that this "is a translation from the German edition." Gay appears agnostic on the question, noting only that both German and English editions were published. In any case, a German edition appeared the same year ("Reisen und Entedkungen in Nord- und Central-Afrika in den Jahren...;" Gotha: 1857-58), if not simultaneously, then in short succession; a second English edition appeared in the same year and a cheap edition in 1859. The early owner of this set, C.G. Hodgson, appears to have been a prominent dentist in New South Wales at the turn of the 20th century; his library must have been sizeable, as books with his bookplate have appeared regularly at auction over the past century. Few sets in original cloth have appeared in commerce; this is a beautifully-preserved example. ABBEY TRAVEL 274. GAY 207.