Mungo Park Part VI

Mungo Park's Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa was published in 1799 and is one of the very few books from that time still in print. Very popular in the nineteenth century, it was published in many English editions as well as German, French, Swedish and Dutch.

Here is an edition from 1821. It is one of three I know of published in the 1820s in Dublin by three different publishers. All are small (129 mm x 82 mm; 5.1" x 3.2") and cheap editions with poor printing and reproduction of the woodcuts.



Mungo Park Part V

In part III I discussed an 1800 French edition of Mungo Park's Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa. Here is another from 1835. This is volume 25 of the 40+ volume Bibliothèque Universelle des Voyages with Vie de Mungo-Park (Paris: Armand-Aubrée). There are also short tales of three other African explorers.

This copy has managed to retain the original wrappers.

front wrapper

back wrapper

first page

Mungo Park Part IV

The third of this series of posts on Mungo Park and his Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa highlighted two early editions, one English (1810) and one French (1800). Neither is a first edition in its respective country. But here is the first American edition, published by James Humphreys of Philadelphia in 1800. The book is a lovely example of printing and book production.

Unlike nearly all editions, the American first has all the parts of the British first. The only differences are a list of the American subscribers' names rather than the British list and the exclusion of two of three maps, all five illustrations and a music score. The one map in the American is the primary one of Park's route on his travels. Below is the title page, dedication and list of subscribers' names. Interesting to note that three are from my province of Nova Scotia.



Mungo Park Part III

The first part of this post highlighted an early 20th century edition of Mungo Park's Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa. First published in 1799 this classic tale of discovery for the source of the Niger River in west Africa remains in print. Part II showcased 1810 and 1839 editions. Here are two editions from 1800. One is a London edition but not from the "official" publisher W. Bulmer & Co. The other is an early French edition, Abrégé du Voyage de M. Mungo Park dans l'Intérieur de l'Afrique, published Paris: C. Pougens et Orléans: Berthevin.

Many English editions were published in the first quarter of the nineteenth century - indicating how popular the book was. But none could be bothered with all the parts to the first edition and some also abridged the main narrative. The Crosby and Letterman edition is one of these. By 1803 Letterman was gone and the renamed firm, Crosby & Co., famously held the copyright to Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey until 1809 without publishing. It took Austen a further seven years to buy back the copyright and the novel was published posthumously.



Mungo Park Part II

In the first part of this post about Mungo Park I talked about an early 20th century edition of his book Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa. Here I'll go back a bit.

Travels was published in early 1799 by London's W. Bulmer and Co. There were two other Bulmer editions that year with a fourth in 1800, a fifth in 1807 and a sixth in 1810. The title page from the sixth edition is below. These were all quarto or octavo editions that sold to the upper-middle and upper classes.

In 1839 Edinburgh's William and Robert Chambers published a much cheaper edition in wraps as part of their series The People's Edition. The full text plus supplemental material was printed on 88 double column tiny type pages. The book is 162mm x 250mm. Note that the date is wrong for the first edition.

Mungo Park Part I

I imagine that readers of this blog have asked themselves if this bozo knows about anything other than old Canadian paperbacks. The answer, of course, is no. But I do have other interests in the world of books and here is one of them.

Mungo Park's Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa was published in 1799 and is one of the very few books from that time still in print. Very popular in the nineteenth century it was published in many English editions as well as German, French, Swedish and Dutch. As such it has a rich bibliographic history in contrast to the Canadian paperbacks seen in this blog.

This post will highlight an early twentieth century edition published by London's Adam and Charles Black in 1903. This copy has a Christmas gift note which dates it as a likely first printing. There are eight illustrations by John Williamson.

By this time Travels was a very popular school/society gift. Here is the notice on another copy of the book. The gift note date is 1914 but the title page still has 1903. There is one bibliographic difference between the two copies - the first has "A and C Black" at the bottom of the spine, the second has "Black". The first copy also has a period bookmark.