SAVAGE SUDAN

First edition: map as frontispiece, xx, 452 pages, profusely illustrated with black and white photographs and text illustrations, top edge gilt – others uncut, green cloth sides with gilt vignette of a warthog on the upper cover, and a gilt buffalo on the back, titled gilt on the spine, a fine 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 (Kenneth) An Annotated Bibliography of Big Game Hunting Books 1785 – 1999, page 60, 'Chapman recounts his journey to Khartoum, then up the White Nile inot Uganda. He hunted gazelle in the arid regions of the Sudan, then stalked tiang, hartebeest and roan near the Sobat River. As he continued up the White Nile, he bagged waterbuck, kob and lechwe. There are exciting encounters with buffalo, hippo and elephant, the lateer near the Zeraf River. Additional hunting for rhino and eland took place near the Blue Nile and Dinder Rivers.