A Hunter’s Wanderings In Africa.

SELOUS, Frederick Courteney.

$9,800.00

Item Number: 148068

London: Richard Bentley & Son, 1881.

First edition of this classic firsthand account “perhaps the most famous of all hunting books” of Frederick Courteney Selous’ hunting expeditions across southern and central Africa. Octavo, original pictorial cloth with gilt titles to the spine, tissue-guarded wood engraved frontispiece, a folding map, with 19 black and white full-page illustrations. Association copy, inscribed by the author in the year of publication on the half-title page, “To James S. Jameson with kind regards from the author Nov 1881.” The recipient, James Sligo Jameson (1856–1888) was a Scottish explorer, naturalist, and heir to the Jameson whiskey fortune. In the early part of 1879, he went to South Africa in search of big game and joined African hunter F.C. Selous in Matabele (Ndebele), before pushing on to Mashonaland, hunting lions and rhinoceroses. He is mentioned fifteen times in the index. On page 415 Selous writes, ‘Jameson opened the ball by striking a large cow (hippo) right in front of the head with a 10-bore bullet….’ Towards the end of 1878 he went out to South Africa in search of big game, and hunted on the edges of the Kalahari Desert. In the early part of 1879 he returned to Potchefstroom, from where, despite the disaffection of the Boers, he reached the Zambezi district of the interior, trekking along the Great Marico River and up the Limpopo. Together with H. Collison he next passed through the ‘Great Thirst Land’ into the country of the Matabele (Ndebele), whose king received them hospitably. In 1881 Jameson returned to England with a collection of large hunting trophies as well as ornithological, entomological, and botanical specimens. ‘This expedition to Mashona’, wrote Bowdler Sharpe, “added a great deal to our knowledge of the birds of South-East Africa” (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, M. G. Watkins, revised by Andrew Grout). In very good condition. Illustrations by J. Smit, E. Whymper and Miss A.B. Selous. An exceptional association, most rare and desirable signed and inscribed.

Frederick Courteney Selous (1851–1917) was a British explorer, hunter, and conservationist known for his extensive travels across Africa and his detailed accounts of wildlife and indigenous cultures. His writings, particularly A Hunter’s Wanderings in Africa (1881), provided valuable ethnographic and zoological observations, influencing both conservation efforts and popular perceptions of Africa during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Selous played a key role in British colonial expansion, serving as a guide for Cecil Rhodes during the colonization of Rhodesia (modern Zimbabwe and Zambia). Later in life, he became an advocate for wildlife conservation, recognizing the impact of excessive hunting. He was killed in action during World War I while serving with the British Army in East Africa.