Ɵ PARK, Mungo. The Journal of a Mission to the Interior of Africa in the Year 1805. London: 1815.

Ɵ PARK, Mungo. (1771 - 1806). The Journal of a Mission to the Interior of Africa in the Year 1805. John Murray, London. 1815. single volume, second edition, 4to., (269 x 220mm), modern quarter black leather over marbled boards, gilt lettering and raised bands bordered in gilt to spine, seemingly complete, half-title, advertisement to the second edition, 'African words' list, appendix, 1 folding hand-coloured map. This second edition, revised and corrected with additions, was printed in the same year as the first edition. It appears to be an enlarged second edition with a variant of the same title found in Oxford Bodleian Library (CC 121 Art. Seld.), with a pagination of only 219 pages, whereas the present volume includes 373 pages.

Mungo Park was a Scottish explorer of West Africa, and this text records his travels of the upper Niger in 1805. Following a previous exploration in 1796 he published a text in which he theorised that the Niger and Congo merged to become the same river, a theory which was later disproved. Park was regarded as an enemy of many of the tribes who lived along the route on which he travelled, he drowned whilst trying to escape attacks from local natives. His observations are striking for lacking in emotion, and this set a standard that future travel writers would follow. (1)

Condition Report:
clean and bright binding, first and last few leaves lightly foxed. Condition Report Disclaimer