Return to Annotated Bibliography List

Resources in New York Public Libraries

Serials and Monographs: Description and Travel

Bailey, Henry. Travel and adventures in the Congo Free State and its big game shooting, by Bula N'Zau [pseud.]. Illustrated from the author's sketches, with map. London: Chapman & Hall, 1894. xiv, 335 p. illus., map (fold.) 23 cm. Introduction signed: Henry Bailey.

Bentley, William Holman, 1855-1905. Life on the Congo. London: Religious Tract Society, 1893. 128 p. illus. 19 cm. Bentley relates his life as a missionary on the Congo River in this relatively early descriptive work.

Burrows, Guy. The land of the pigmies. With introduction by H.M. Stanley, M.P. with illustrations from photographs and sketches by the author. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Company, [1898]. xxx, 3-299, [1] plate (front.): ill., ports.; 24 cm. See below under "Politics" for a discussion of Guy Burrows.

Hertogh, A. de. Le Congo belge; notre colonie. Bruxelles: A. de Boeck, 1910. 143 p. illus., music, ports. This oversize picture book has terrific photographs of the terrain and peoples of the Congo. It must have been irresistible to young James Chapin. Notable are pictures of people tapping wild rubber vines and lining up with their baskets of rubber. The people of the Congo were taxed by Leopold's government, and paid these taxes with such baskets of rubber. By most accounts, it took approximately twenty days each month to gather enough rubber to pay one family's taxes.

Jephson, A. J. Mounteney. Emin Pasha and the rebellion at the equator; a story of nine months' experience in the last of the Soudan provinces. With the revision and cooperation of Henry M. Stanley. New York: C. Scribner's Sons, [c1890]. xxiv, 490 p. front., illus., plates, ports., plan, fold. map, facsim. 23 cm.

Johnson, T. Broadwood. Tramps round the Mountains of the Moon and through the back gate of the Congo State. London: T. F. Unwin, 1908. xxiii, 316 p. front., illus., 31 pl., map. 21 cm. Typical of the adventure travel books written about the Congo at the time; the cover of this book shows turbanned and fezzed men proudly displaying a haul of ivory; ivory was the first massively exploited natural resource of the Congo.

Stanley, Henry M. How I found Livingstone: travels, adventures and discoveries in Central Africa: including an account of four months' residence with Dr. Livingstone. With maps and illustrations after drawings by the author. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co., 1872. xxiii, 736 p. illus., maps, fold. plan. 23 cm.

Stanley, Henry M. Through the Dark continent: or, The sources of the Nile around the great lakes of equatorial Africa, and down the Livingstone River to the Atlantic Ocean. With ten maps and one hundred and fifty woodcuts. New York, Harper & Brothers, 1878. 2 v. illus., maps, plates, ports. 23 cm.

Stanley, Henry M. The Congo and the founding of its free state; a story of work and exploration. With over one hundred full-page and smaller illustrations, two large maps, and several smaller ones. New York, Harper & Brothers, 1885. 2 v. fronts., illus., plates, ports., maps (part fold.) plan. 23 cm.

Stanley, Henry M. In darkest Africa: or, The quest, rescue and retreat of Emin, governor of Equatoria ... With one hundred and fifty woodcut illustrations and maps. New York: Chas. Scribner's Sons, 1890. 2 v. front., illus., plates, ports, maps. (part col.), 23 cm.

Stanley, Henry M. The autobiography of Sir Henry Morton Stanley. Edited by his wife, Dorothy Stanley. Boston: Houghton Mifflin [1909]. 551 p. illus., facsim., folded map., ports.

>Stanley seems to have been a cruel and conflicted man. His many biographies cite numerous lies he told about himself and his background, chief among them, that he was an American (he was born in Wales and raised in a workhouse) and that his name was Henry Morton Stanley (he was born John Rowlands). An opportunist of the highest order, he was a journalist when he first went to Africa, to find David Livingstone. Every time he returned from the Congo, he wrote a two-volume book, in which he depicts himself as revered by the natives, admired by his men, intrepid and compassionate. Books and diaries written by men who served under him on these expeditions, and even his own letters and journals, often contradicted this depiction, casting Stanley as a ruthless bully who used men like tools. During his last large expedition, he looted and burned villages and killed the Congolese without thought. One of his officers packed the severed head of an African in a box of salt and sent it to a taxidermist in London (Hochschild p. 99).

Ward, Herbert. Five years with the Congo cannibals. London: Chatto & Windus, 1891. xv, 308 p. ill. 25 cm. Typical of the era, this book is heavily illustrated and larded with anecdotes about "funny" native practices, run-ins with big game, and description of flora. In books such as this one, the authors try to be objective observers - they attempt to be neither patronizing nor critical, but merely to document the oral traditions, rituals, and daily life of a "primitive" culture. These books seem to us, in 1999, to be both patronizing and critical, but it is unkind to judge these writers too harshly. It is very difficult to maintain objectivity when observing other human beings, and it was obviously more so "back then," when the world was smaller.