EXPLORATIONS & ADVENTURES IN EQUATORIAL AFRICA

479 pages, folding frontispiece of a gorilla, 28 wood-engraved plates and numerous illustrations in the text, folding map, half brown calf with red title label, marbled boards rubbed, foxing on the preliminary and end pages, bookplate on front paste-down endpaper, overall a good copy.

Along with Livingstone's Missionary Travels and Researches, du Chaillu's Explorations and Adventures was one the most important books published on Africa in the mid-nineteenth century and was influential in shaping the European view of the 'dark' continent. 10,000 copies of the Guinea edition were sold in two years (Livingstone's book sold 30,000 copies of the Guinea edition in four years. Altick: 'The English Common Reader', 1957.) The discovery of an ape-like man coincided with Darwin's theories of evolution. Du Chaillu's book and lectures significantly influenced the future course of African exploration inspiring amongst others Richard Burton who later published Two Trips to Gorilla Land in 1876.

Czech (K.) An Annotated Bibliography of African Big Game Hunting Books 1785-1999 (new edition 2011) page 86: A noted, if somewhat controversial travel writer of his day, Du Chaillu journeyed through the heavily forested regions of Gabon in search of gorilla, though he also encountered elephants, buffalo, and hippo. He was among the first white men to ever trek into gorilla territory, and some of his remarks and sketches were viewed as being fictional by 'experts' of that era.