Lot Details
Lot 379
TUCKEY, J. K. Narrative of an Expedition to Explore the River Zaire, usually called the Congo, in South Africa, in 1816...
New-York: Kirk & Mercein, 1818. One of three American editions published the same year, priority unknown. Modern three-quarters green morocco. 8 3/8 x 5 inches; 410 pp.; folding map, in-text illustrations, half-title. Map with tape repair to verso, lightly and evenly toned throughout, booksellers ticket to rear pastedown.
An early African travelogue, and the official account of the first scientific expedition to the Congo River, to determine if it was the "outlet of the Niger." It also had the aim of filling in some of the unknown or guessed-at geographical features of the African continent, which the Introduction admits was "almost a blank on our charts" or else "large spaces filled up with random sketches of rivers, lakes, and mountains, which have no other existence than that which the fancy of the map-maker has given to them on his paper." Cf. Hosken, p. 203 (for UK edition published the same year).
C Estate of Arnold 'Jake' Johnson
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