The Congo and Coasts of Africa

Hardcover octavo (155mm x 218mm) book in the original publisher’s orange-red cloth covers with gilt titles to the spine and a rhinoceros vignette plus title to the front cover, in black; no dust wrapper. Twelve preliminary plus 220 pages of text; no index. Tissue guarded photographic frontispiece plus 31 full page photographic plates. The spine has been professionally replaced, with the original spine re-mounted. The book is in Good condition, tightly bound with nice corners, no inscriptions, no foxing and no browning. Black end-papers.

Richard Harding Davis, born in 1864, was the son of a journalist and a mother who was also a writer. After a somewhat shaky start to his career he found employment at the New York Evening Sun, where he became known for his literary style and his writings on controversial subjects such as abortion and suicide. He later became a war correspondent and covered the Spanish-American War, the Anglo Boer War and the First World War. Having found his niche, he became an influential man and, inter alia, became friendly with Theodore Roosevelt whose political career benefited from Davis’ writings. In this volume he recounts a visit to the Congo, together with his wife. He gives details of how Leopold of Belgium, in a private capacity, bought up land around the mouth of the river and then proceeded to take over the area as a colony of Belgium. He mentions the problems of disease and the discomforts of heat in the area, and describes the lives led by the European entrepreneurs.