ON SAFARI; BIG-GAME HUNTING IN BRITISH EAST AFRICA

Sketch-maps and photographs

First edition: xvi, 340 pages, 4 pages publisher’s advertisements, frontispiece, 35 plates, numerous text illustrations including maps, original dark grey cloth with titled gilt on the front cover and spine and grey and white vignette of elephant’s head outlined in gilt on front cover, edges uncut, a very good copy.

(Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Chapman, Abel (1851–1929) Jane Carruthers. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/64726) Chapman, Abel (1851–1929), naturalist and hunter, was born at 212 High Street, Bishopwearmouth, co. Durham, on 4 October 1851, the eldest of the six sons and two daughters of Thomas Edward Chapman (1820–1875), wine merchant, and his wife, Jane Ann, née Crawhall (d. 1903). He was educated at Rugby School from 1864 to 1869. From 1875 he was a partner in the family business of T. E. Chapman, brewers and wine-merchants, an enterprise he sold in 1897.....His African adventures culminated in On Safari (1908) and Savage Sudan (1921)—the first natural history book about this area—which were entertaining and vivid accounts of east Africa and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, illustrated by the author. While a work of its time in terms of Chapman's Edwardian imperial and patronizing attitudes towards what he referred to as the 'pure-bred savage of the Sudan', and to the Africans of east Africa, this book is intelligent in its handling of the geographical distribution of wildlife and of Darwinian ideas and scientific zoology. In hindsight Chapman considered his major contribution to African wildlife conservation to have been his suggestion in 1900—the first of its kind—that the entire eastern boundary of the Transvaal be declared a national game reserve. As boundaries for this 'ideal reserve for game and wild animals' he recommended what are essentially the present limits of the modern Kruger National Park. In the event this did not materialize for another generation, and Chapman was not personally involved in the foundation of the Kruger National Park in 1926, although he supported its establishment and corresponded with its warden, James Stevenson-Hamilton.'

Czech (Dr. Kenneth) An Annotated Bibliography of African Big Game Hunting Books 1785 – 1999, pages 59 -60, 'A prolific sporting author, Chapman combined fluid writing style with his exciting experiences hunting in British East Africa. He followed the Uganda Railway, with hunting excursions toward Lake Elementeita and also westward to the Enderit River and along Lake Nakuru. On a 1904 hunt, Chapman describes his trek across the Athi Plains. There are plentiful hunting experiences, including lion, waterbuck, rhino, elephant, gazelle, eland, kudu, and buffalo. The illustrations are plentiful and come from photographs and the talented pen of Edmund Caldwell.'