TRAVELS IN THE INTERIOR DISTRICTS OF AFRICA

Second Edition: 372 + xcii, list of subscribers, frontispiece portrait, 2 folding maps, folding chart, 2 engraved botanical plates and 3 engraved folding plates from sketches by the author, 2 engraved pages of music - 'A Negro Song,' from Mr Park's Travels, recent half brown morocco titled and decorated gilt on the spine, brown cloth sides, light water stain on top and fore-edge which does not affect the contents which are clean and free of foxing

'Printing and the Mind of Man' p. 253: 'Park's Travels had an immediate success and was translated into most European languages. It has become a classic of travel literature, and its scientific observations on the botany and meteorology of the region, and on the social and domestic life of the Negroes, have remained of lasting value. Park’s career was short, but he made the first great practical advance in the opening-up of Central Africa. Park did not solve the problem of the Niger: he believed it to be a tributary of the Nile or to be really identical with the Congo; but he set the further exploration of the region in the right direction. Clapperton, Oudney, Lander, Barth and others followed in Park’s footsteps and found the source of the river in Sierra Leone in 1822 and its mouth in the Gulf of Guinea in 1830.' One of only two books on Africa included in the 'Printing and the Mind of Man', the other being 'Livingstone's Missionary Travels and Researches'.