Africana Books

The Africana books are a great mixture of works on African topics that may be of interest to any Africanophile. There are many safari tales and travelogues which, though they may not include hunting stories, are fascinating reads.

S Z Ahmed

Dr S Z Ahmed is a cultural anthropologist and is also an independent documentary film producer.

Ruwenzori, The Mountains Of The Moon: An Incredible Land Journey From England Through Europe To The Heart Of Central Africa by S Z Ahmed (1993) is the author's account of his journey to study the the pygmies of the rainforest.

Fiona Alexander

Tracks Through The Bush by Fiona Alexander (1997) is a collection of short stories set in Kenya.

Elephants In My Cockpit by Fiona Alexander (1991) is a scarce book of stories about the author's life in Kenya from 1960 to 1990. Fiona Alexander was a bush pilot and wildlife conservationist - she alerted Richard Leakey 'Wildlife Wars: My Fight To Save Africa's Natural Treasures' to the uncontrolled poaching of elephants, when he was chairman of Kenya Wildlife Service.

Michael Allin

Zarafa: A Giraffe's True Story by Michael Allin (1998) is the true story of a giraffe's journey from where she was caught in the African savanna to Paris, France in 1826 - the first time a giraffe was ever seen in France. The giraffe travelled 2000 miles down the Nile to Alexandria, from where she sailed across the Mediterranean standing in the hold of a ship with her neck and head protruding through a hole cut in the deck. In the spring of 1827, after wintering in Marseille, she was walked 550 miles to Paris. She was a politically motivated gift from Muhammad Ali, Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt, to King Charles X - he commanded the Turkish forces fighting the Greeks in their war of independence and hoped his gift would persuade the French not to intervene against him, which did not work out in the end. The giraffe lived her life in the royal menagerie.

Peter Allison

Whatever You Do, Don't Run: True Tales Of A Botswana Safari Guide by Peter Allison (2007). The author works as a photographic safari guide in the Okavango Delta. In this oasis of wetland in the middle of the Kalahari desert, he caters to the whims of his wealthy clients. This work is filled with true tales of the people and animals he has encountered.

Don't Look Behind You!: True Tales Of A Safari Guide is the author's follow-up book about his encounters as a safari guide, including ravenous lions, stampeding elephants and lovesick rhinos. He recounts his often hilarious adventures in a private reserve adjacent to South Africa's Kruger National Park and in Botswana's Okavango Delta.

Edward A Alpers

Edward A Alpers is a professor of Eastern African and Indian Ocean history. He has published numerous books and articles on this subject.

Ivory And Slaves: In East Central Africa by Edward A Alpers (1975) is about the "changing patterns of international trade to the later nineteenth century".

More books by Edward A Alpers

Mohamed Amin, Brian Tetley & Duncan Willetts

On God's Mountain: The Story Of Mount Kenya by Mohamed Amin, Brian Tetley & Duncan Willetts (1991) is a splendid photographic history of Mount Kenya.

J R L Anderson

High Mountains And Cold Seas: A Biography Of H W Tilman by J R L Anderson (1980) is the biography of a very remarkable man. Harold William Tilman (1898 - 1977) was a soldier settler in Kenya who had worked in Nairobi before World War I, having served in the KAR. He bought about 2000 acres of land at Sotik to be developed for growing coffee. A restless character, he went on to climb Kilimanjaro, Mount Kenya and the Ruwenzori mountains. He also rode a bicycle from Uganda to West Africa - the first person to do so - on his way back to England. Tilman, and his climbing companion Eric Shipton, climbed many of the world's greatest mountains and he wrote fifteen mountaineering and sailing books. In 1977 he set sail in the converted tugboat with an expedition to Smith Island in the South Shetlands (a group of Antarctic islands). After the boat left Rio bound for the Falklands, it was never seen again and Tilman was presumed dead in April 1979.
Read also 'Snow On The Equator' by Harold William Tilman

Joseph H Appel

Africa's White Magic by Joseph H Appel (1928) The white magic is replacing the worn out black magic of Africa. The magic of railroads, of motors, of aeroplanes; of growing cities, of widespread educational facilities, of stable government; of comfortable homes and efficient public buildings; of great farms reclaimed from jungle and swamp; of irrigation and sanitation; of the conquest of disease. It is the white magic of the new spirit of Africa, building a new continent on the indomitable spirit of the early pioneers. Photographs by Herman and Gretchen Cron

Roy Aronson

Tales Of An African Vet by Roy Aronson (2007) is the story of of a South African vet and his experiences with wild animals, domestic animals, big animals and small animals. He has tracked lions and cheetah, anaesthetized rhinoceros, collared elephants and nearly lost a foot to a hungry crocodile. Plus he had to shoot a bull running amok in the city, came face to face with an angry hybrid wolf, been spat at by a cobra and attacked by a puff adder.

M C Atkinson

Michael C Atkinson (b.1917) entered the Colonial Administrative Service as a cadet in 1939. He was posted to Nigeria where he later held various posts as Administrative Officer in Nigeria until 1959.

An African Life: Tales Of A Colonial Officer by M C Atkinson (1992) is an account of the work of the Nigerian Administrative Service from the 1930s to the transfer of power. The author served in the Western Region from 1938 to 1959, rising from assistant district officer to Minister of Education. The book deals with various aspects of a colonial officer's life, from dealing with witchcraft to setting up a television service, and provides some insights into the role and aims of colonists.

Ariane Audouin-Dubreuil

Ariane Audouin-Dubreuil is the daughter of Louis Audouin-Dubreuil who was one of the pioneers of the exploration of the Sahara. Along with Georges Marie Haardt, André Citroën's close collaborator and partner, he planned and led the expedition which succeeded in reaching Timbuktu and then returned by a different route to Algeria.

Crossing The Sands: The Sahara Desert Track To Timbuktu by Ariane Audouin-Dubreuil (2007) is the story of the early exploration of the Sahara Desert and the first motorised crossing of the Sahara from North Africa to Timbuktu by Citroën autochenilles (half-track vehicles) in the early years of the 20th century The Citroën B2 10 HP model K1 was the first car to cross the Sahara in December 1922. It was the command vehicle of an expedition founded by André Citroën, and commanded by George-Marie Haardt and Louis Audouin-Dubreuil. With four other vehicles of the same type, in fifteen stages, they crossed the Sahara in 21 days (from December 17, 1922 to January 7, 1923), covering 3200 kms, between Touggourt and Timbuktu.

Paul Augustinus

Botswana: A Brush With The Wild by Paul Augustinus (1987) is an autobiographical account of life as an artist in the wilds of 1970's Botswana. The book has an extensive text that describes his travels in the context of similar journeys through the same areas in the late 1800's by Livingstone, Baines, Chapman and others. The book is fully illustrated with many Paul Augustinus paintings, sketches and photographs as well as photography and engravings by the earlier travellers.

Desert Adventure: In Search Of Wilderness In Namibia And Botswana by Paul Augustinus (1997) is another autobiographical account of journeys undertaken by Paul Augustinus in 1990 through Namibia and Botswana returning to areas he had lived in in the late 1970s and also to new areas to him in search of desert rhino, elephant and lion. The book's extensive text is fully illustrated with many Paul Augustinus paintings, sketches and photographs.

Richard St Barbe Baker

Richard Edward St Barbe Baker (1889 – 1982) was an English biologist and botanist, environmental activist and prolific author, who contributed greatly to worldwide reforestation efforts. In 1922 he set up a tree nursery in Kenya and founded an organisation with the Kikuyu people to carry out managed reforestation in the region, utilising native species. He was appointed Assistant Conservator of Forests for the southern provinces of Nigeria from 1925 to 1929. He went on to do work there similar to that he had done in Kenya. He also did forestry planning work in the Gold Coast.

Africa Drums by Richard St Barbe Baker (1942) is the memoir of the Assistant Conservator of Forests in Kenya and the southern provinces of Nigeria during the early to mid-19th century. The author became a 'blood brother' of the Kikuyu in Kenya and succeeded in reforesting vast swathes of territory. He travelled widely across Africa and includes much information and insight into African folklore, animism, ju-ju and the 'language of the drums'.

Kabongo: The Story Of A Kikuyu Chief by Richard St Barbe Baker (1955) is the life story of a Kikuyu chief in Kenya from before the Mau Mau times.

Men Of The Trees: In The Mahogany Forests Of Kenya And Nigeria by Richard St Barbe Baker (1931) is an account of the author's personal experiences during eight years living in the mahogany forests of Nigeria and in the highlands of Kenya. The book abounds with the enthusiasm of a man whose whole life was devoted to the planting and preservation of trees. He inspired large numbers of the local indigenous people to protect their forests and plant trees. Free eBook

Alice B Balfour

Alice Blanche Balfour (c.1847 - 1936) was the sister of Arthur James Balfour, later Prime Minister of England.

Twelve Hundred Miles In A Waggon by Alice B Balfour (1895) is the account of a leisurely journey from Kimberley to Umtali by the author and three companions. They sailed to the Cape and equipped themselves for a trip to Matabeleland and Mashonaland by wagon. Whilst waiting for the wagons to be built, they travelled around the Cape, Orange Free State, Basutoland, Johannesburg and Kimberley, finally joining their wagons near Mafeking. Visits to Great Zimbabwe, Victoria, Salisbury, Bulawayo and Umtali are described. Free eBook

A South African Trek by Alice B Balfour (1898) is a copy of a magazine account of the author's journey through South Africa.

Patrick Balfour

John Patrick Douglas Balfour, 3rd Baron Kinross (1904 - 1976) was a Scottish historian, journalist and author, whose interest in Africa began when he was a war correspondent in Abyssinia during the Second Italian-Abyssinian war of 1935-1936.

Lords Of The Equator: An African Journey by Patrick Balfour (1937) is an account of a 10000 mile journey through Central Africa with the object of studying the future of the three mandates at work under Britain, France, and Belgium respectively. (All of the African territories subject to League of Nations mandates were previously controlled by states defeated in World War I, principally Imperial Germany and the Ottoman Empire). The author offers shrewd, witty and informative comments on everything and everyone he sees - the curious habits of natives and Europeans, the problems of administration, the beauties and incongruities of this continent which had been called dark and mysterious for too long.

Charles Ballard

John Robert Dunn (1834 - 1895), the subject of this book, was a South African-born British settler, hunter and trader. His knowledge of Zulu customs and language gave him increasing influence among Zulu princes, exploiting various opportunities for trade. He rose to further influence and power when King Cetshwayo became the Zulu sovereign - he became Cetshwayo's secretary and adviser and was rewarded with chieftainship and land. Although he was already married to the daughter of a white settler, he accepted a total of 48 Zulu wives during his lifetime which resulted in 117 children.

After his death, all of Dunn's dependents settled on a reserve near the Tugela River. Their ownership of the land was confirmed in 1902 and 1935, but it was only in 1974 that the Dunn family finally obtain the title deeds for Dunnsland.

John Dunn: The White Chief Of Zululand by Charles Ballard (1985) is an account of the extraordinary life of an Anglo-South African trader who rose to prominence in the 1870s as an advisor to the Zulu King Cetshwayo.
Related book: 'The Hippo Poacher' by Oliver Walker, is about John Dunn's son, Tom Dunn, who became the most notorious hippo poacher in Zululand.

Juliet Barnes

For The Love Of Soysambu: The Saga Of Lord Delamere & His Descendants In Kenya by Juliet Barnes (2020) is a story spanning 122 years and highlights challenges faced by four generations of an initially British aristocratic family in Kenya. The saga begins in 1897 with the arrival of Hugh Cholmondeley, who walked over 1000 kilometres into East Africa from Berbera. In 1902, after inheriting the title of 3rd Baron Delamere, he gradually built up a reputation as an agricultural experimental farmer, politician and pioneer. Soysambu was the name of the Delamere estate. When he died in 1931, Delamere's son, Thomas Cholmondeley, the 4th Baron Delamere, moved to Kenya after World War II to salvage his father's farms by turning Soysambu into a successful cattle ranch. His third wife, Diana, remained notorious for her affair with Lord Erroll at his time of murder, with many still believing she'd been his killer. Following Thomas's death in 1979, his only son Hugh, the 5th Baron Delamere, took over Soysambu. His son, Tom Cholmondeley, faced increasing financial problems and pressure from land-hungry Kenyans, a situation exacerbated when he was charged with murder - twice. After his incarcerations and eventual release, he was busy implementing his innovative ideas on Soysambu when he died unexpectedly in 2016 after hip surgery.

The Ghosts Of Happy Valley by Jukiet Barnes (2013). The author, who has lived in Kenya for many years, set out to explore 'Happy Valley' in a remarkable archaeological quest to find the homes and haunts of this extraordinary and vanished set of people. Among these people was the writer Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen), the pioneering aviator Beryl Markham and the troubled socialite Idina Sackville and still unsolved murder of the Lord Erroll.

Captain E J Bartlett

In The Land Of Sheba by Captain E J Bartlett (1934) tells of the trials, dangers and adventures of a mining engineer and his companion in Abyssinia and the search for for the legendary treasure mines of the Queen of Sheba. Captain Bartlett knew Abyssinia well, having been Chief Engineer to the Emperor Ras Tafari.

Donald Barton

An Affair With Africa by Donald Barton (2004) is an account of a latter-day District Officer in the Colonial Administrative Service in rural Tanganyika during the last years before independence. There are descriptions of foot safaris, poaching, murder, anti-famine measures, smuggling, witchcraft, a school riot, a locust invasion and the threat of civil unrest.

Walter Baumgartel

Walter Baumgartel (1892 - 1997) was a German businessman and hotelier in Uganda. He owned the Travellers Rest Hotel in Kisoro which he acquired in 1955 which soon became popular with all the mountain gorilla researchers of the time, who used the hotel as a base camp. The guests included Dian Fossey, George Schaller and Bernhardt Grzimek. Baumgartel became interested in the gorillas and their conservation so he convinced the British colonial authorities in Uganda to allow paid mountain gorilla tourism. In 1955 Baumgartel started offering guided gorilla tracking for his guests.

Walter Baumgärtel left and returned to Germany soon after Uganda attained Independence in 1962.

Up Among The Mountain Gorillas by Walter Baumgartel (1976) is an interesting account of the author's own encounters with the gorillas, the history of Uganda and the development of gorilla tourism as a way of paying for their conservation and that of their habitat.

Veronica Bellers

A Speck In The Ocean Of Time by Veronica Bellers (2014) relates the story of Pat O’Dwyer, an Assistant District Commissioner in Sierra Leone, and a number of others who went out to Africa to serve in the Colonial Service in the early 1930s. The book is full of anecdotes about the world of the district commissioner in Africa which could be tough and austere.

Frank Bennett

Under An African Sun: Memoirs Of A Colonial Officer In Northern Rhodesia by Frank Bennett (2005) is a gentle and humorous portrait of colonial government and the lifestyles of its officers. Frank Bennett made a spontaneous decision to reply to an advertisement for the Colonial Service. Knowing little about the Service and where he might be sent, he found himself as a junior clerk in the Ministry of Finance in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). He worked in the 'Passages' office approving travel vouchers for his other members of the service. This gave him the opportunity for plenty of adventures, travelling around East Africa from the Victoria Falls to Mozambique.

Nicholas Bennett

Zigzag To Timbuktu by Nicholas Bennett (1963) is the tale of the author's travels in West Africa, with basically no money, ending up in Timbuktu. Bennett was 18 years old when he decided to travel to the place that seemed to him to be the most remote in the world...Timbuktu. The first half of the book cover the time the author worked as a maths teacher in Ghana. Once on his travels, he heads north from Ghana, into Upper Volta (now Burkina-Faso) before crossing the border into Mali, where he is told to return to Upper Volta to obtain the correct visa. After sulking and trying anything to avoid getting a visa (paying the visa fee) he takes a 400 mile trip to Bamako in the wrong direction, gets a visa somehow, returns and sets off for Timbuktu, on the Niger river.

Newell Bent Jr

Newell Bent Jr (d.1936) graduated from Harvard in 1933 and joined the Department of Anthropology at Trinity College, Cambridge in order to study the highest regions of the world and the people who exist in them. In the following year he arrived in Cape Town and undertook a journey through Northern Rhodesia, Tanganyika and Uganda. This expedition was not intended for Africa at all. Bent had planned to go to Western Tibet but the death of the Dalai Lama led to a strict embargo placed on foreign visitors.

Jungle Giants by Newell Bent (1936) is the narrative of his one-man expedition to Africa. En route, Bent met the South African cricketer Robert Crisp and the two climbed to the highest point on Mount Kilimanjaro. Bent records the ascent in words and images taken from his own photographs. The book was completed on the author's return to Harvard in 1935 but not published until after his death that year while attempting an ascent of Aconcagua in the Andes.

Felice Benuzzi

Felice Benuzzi (1910 - 1988) was an Italian diplomat, climber and international swimmer who served with the Italian Colonial Service in Italian-occupied Abyssinia, where he was captured by Allied forces when the country was liberated in 1941. He was imprisoned in Kenya during which time he broke out to make a remarkable attempt to climb Mount Kenya. The col between Point Dutton and the Petit Gendarme on Mount Kenya has been named Benuzzi Col in his honour.

No Picnic On Mount Kenya by Felice Benuzzi (1952). The author was in a prisoner-of-war camp in East Africa, when due to boredom, he broke out with two companions to make a remarkable attempt to climb Mount Kenya, with only makeshift equipment and hoarded rations. They left a note telling their British captors "not to worry, we'll be right back as soon as we climb the mountain".

Hugo Adolf Bernatzik

Hugo Adolf Bernatzik (1897 - 1953) was an Austrian freelance ethnologist, photographer and travel journalist.

Gari Gari: The Call Of The African Wilderness by Hugo Adolf Bernatzik (1936) describes author's 1927 expedition down the Nile to Khartoum, and from there onward to the Kenyan border. He travelled among the Dinka, Neur and Shilluk tribes of Africa.

Dark Continent: Africa. The Landscape And The People by Hugo Adolf Bernatzik (1931) is primarily a visual look at Africa and the various cultures, people and landscapes of the continent. With many photos documenting different tribes and cultures, from individual portraits, to shots of villages, etc., as well as modern encroachments such as mines. Free eBook

Jean-Claude Berrier & Raymond Denizet

Jean-Claude Berrier (b.1927) was a French traveller, travel writer and novelist. His travels included the Sahara desert and Tibesti in 1951, Congo in 1953, an Ethiopian expedition and in 1955-1956, Siam and Cambodia.

High Places Of Africa by Jean-Claude Berrier & Raymond Denizet (1956) is the account of an African expedition of six young men in two Renault cars on an enthralling exploration. They won awards and a film was made of their adventures. Their route took them through many areas, some with great difficulty, including Tasili, Tibesti, Zouar, Bilma, Ethiopia, Toubbou, Ounianga, Rwanda, Kenya, etc.

C Kate Bertram & Janet Trant

Cicely Kate Bertram (1912 - 1999) was a British biologist specialising in fish at Cambridge University. She contributed to two seminal reports on freshwater fish in eastern Africa.

Letters From The Swamps: East Africa 1936-1937 by Cecily Kate Bertram & Janet Trant (1991) is a a collection of quotations from the letters the authors wrote to their families during a visit with the Gore-Brownes at Shiwa Ngandu in Northern Rhodesia, while investigating the fish of Lake Shiwa and Lake Bangweulu in Northern Rhodesia, Lake Rukwa in Tanganyika and Lake Tanganyika before returning home via the Belgian Congo, Uganda and down the Nile.

Nicholas Best

Happy Valley: The Story Of The English In Kenya by Nicholas Best (1979) is the story of the British in Kenya, from the explorer Joseph Thomson to the decadent Happy Valley set of the 1930s, the murder of Lord Erroll, and the Mau Mau revolt of the 1950s.

C P de Leeuw Beyers

Cornelis Pieter de Leeuw Beyers was a South African school teacher who had a passion for wildlife filmmaking and photography. He started filming in the Kruger Park in 1921 and his 1933 films was one of the first to receive a Medal of Honour for Film Art. This accolade furthered his wildlife film-making career and many of his films were used for educational purposes. He also went on to write 2 books about the Kruger Park.

Kruger Park Adventures by C P de Leeuw Beyers (1968) is a collection of stories from when the author first visited the Sabi Government Game Reserve (later the Kruger Park) in 1921, on foot with pack-donkeys photographing and observing the game. These stories are from his 48 years spent filming in the Kruger.

Lurking Danger In The Kruger Park by C P de Leeuw Beyers (1970) are further tales based on actual events that took place when the author spent years filming animals in the Kruger. Some of the stories are about the people he met and some are the author's observations of the wildlife. The book includes frame images from his films as well as still photographs.

Melvin Bolton

Melvin Bolton (b.1938) is a British-born ecologist and author of number of ecology and fictional books.

Ethiopian Wildlands by Melvin Bolton (1976) is the account of a wildlife ecologist, who spent 5 years in Ethiopia travelling in the remoter parts of the country. He recounts his encounters with the people, animals and landscapes.

John Morton Boyd

Fraser Darling In Africa: A Rhino In The Whistling Thorn edited by John Morton Boyd (1993) is an account of the life and times of pioneer conservationist Sir Frank Fraser Darling, taken from his journals. The book describes the safaris Darling made by foot, air and motor in Zambia, Kenya and the Sudan in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It also provides a valuable record of the now wildlife numbers of these regions of Africa at the time and also of the tribal people of the period.
For Sir Frank Fraser Darling's book 'Wild Life In An African Territory'.

David Boyle

David Hugh Montgomerie Boyle (1883 - 1970) was the husband of Laura Boyle and a Colonial Officer before accepting a foreign office post in the US. It is at this point where his past gets rather murky with Boyle being at the centre of an US-British spy row in 1920 which blighted Anglo-American relations until 1940. Read more about David Boyle.

With Ardours Manifold by David Boyle (1959) is the author's autobiography, including his time in the Colonial Service in West Africa during World War I and his many travels in the inter-War period.

Dugald Blair Brown

Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel Dugald Blair Brown (1847 - 1896) was a surgeon in the British army. He served in the Zulu Wars, the early Boer Wars and in India and Burma. He died in service in the Punjab.

Surgical Experiences In The Zulu And Transvaal Wars 1879 And 1881 by Dugald Blair-Brown (1883) Free eBook

Colin Borradaile - 'Ben Assher'

'Ben Assher' was the pseudonym of Colin Henry Alfred Borradaile (b.1893) who served in the First World War on the Western Front, mainly with the Royal Garrison Artillery and the Royal Flying Corps. Wounded several times, he was able to continue his military career in the Egyptian army as 'Bimbashi' or lieutenant-colonel. He left the army in 1923 and joined the diplomatic service.

A Nomad In The South Sudan: The Travels Of A Political Officer Among The Gaweir Nuers by 'Ben Assher' (1928) is the memoir of the author's two years as a political officer "in the employ of the Sudan Government".

Gordon Boy & Iain Allan

Snowcaps On The Equator: The Fabled Mountains Of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda And Zaire by Gordon Boy & Iain Allan (1990) includes photographs and text about the Virunga mountains, the Ruwenzori mountains, Mount Elgon, Mount Kadam in Uganda, the Sekerr mountain range in Kenya, the Cherangani Hills, Kenya's Northern Mountains, Kenya's Aberdare mountains, Mount Kenya, Kilimanjaro and Mount Meru.

Kenneth Bradley

Sir Kenneth Granville Bradley (1904 - 1977) entered the Colonial Service in 1925 and was posted to Northern Rhodesia. He served as district officer in the bush and in the Secretariat at Lusaka. During the early years of World War II he was information officer in Lusaka before taking up the post of colonial and financial secretary in the Falkland Islands. In 1945 he left Stanley for the Gold Coast, now Ghana, to become under-secretary as that colony was in the run-up to independence.

Diary Of A District Officer by Kenneth Bradley (1947) is a very readable account of a District Officer's life in Portuguese East Africa and Northern Rhodesia in the 1930's.

Once A District Officer by Kenneth Bradley (1966) is the memoir of a District Officer in Northern Rhodesia, Gold Coast and the Falkland Islands

H Brode

Dr Heinrich Brode (1874 - 1936) was a German lawyer who also studied Swahili and Arabic languages. In 1898 he joined the foreign service and was assigned to the Zanzibar consulate. Between 1904 and 1910 Heinrich Brode was alternately administrator of the Mombassa and Zanzibar consulates.

Tippu Tip, or Tib (1832 – 1905), real name Hamad bin Muhammad bin Juma bin Rajab el Murjebi, was a Swahili-Zanzibari slave trader, ivory trader, explorer, plantation owner and governor who worked for a succession of the sultans of Zanzibar. As part of his lucrative ivory trade, he led many trading expeditions into Central Africa by constructing profitable trading posts.

He met and helped several famous western explorers of the African continent, including David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley. Between 1884 and 1887 he claimed the Eastern Congo for himself and for the Sultan of Zanzibar. In early 1887, Stanley arrived in Zanzibar and proposed that Tippu Tip be made governor of the Stanley Falls District in the Congo Free State, which Tippo Tip accepted. At the same time, he also agreed to man the expedition which Stanley had been commissioned to organize to rescue Emin Pasha who had been stranded in the Bahr el Ghazal area as a result of the Mahdist uprising in Sudan.

Tippoo Tib: The Story Of His Career In Central Africa by H Brode (1907) translated from Arabic by H Havelock. This is the story of Tippo Tib's life from his own accounts. Heinrich Brode, who knew him in Zanzibar, transcribed the manuscript into Roman script and translated it into German. It was subsequently translated into English and published in Britain in 1907. Free eBook

John Brown

The Thirsty Land by John Brown (1954) is an account of a journey across the great Thirstland of Southern Africa in 1952-1953 in order to investigate underground water resources in the Namib Desert and Kalahari. Once water could be found they visualized new towns and great cattle ranches similar to those in Texas.

John Buchholzer

John Buchholzer (1917 - 2004) was a Danish writer who worked as an agronomist in Ethiopia from 1948 to 1952, managing farms and building roads for Haile Selassie. In addition, he worked as a journalist and film-maker - he made a number of films about Ethiopia and Sudan in the 1950s. Karen Blixen mentioned him and his work on collecting Somali legend and poetry in her book 'Shadows On The Grass'.

The Horn of Africa: Travels in British Somaliland by John Buchholzer (1959). British Somaliland is now Eritrea. Then, as now, it was a lawless desert land whose people were caught up in endless blood feuds and arms smuggling. Critics of the day praised the book for being "a most instructive and entertaining travel book."

The Land Of Burnt Faces: A Journey To Ethiopia by John Buchholzer (1956)‎ includes observations about the history, culture and religion of the inhabitants Of the Ethiopian hinterland.

Alexander Bulatovich

Alexander Ksaverievich Bulatovich (1870 - 1919) was a Russian cavalry officer who served as Lieutenant of His Majesty’s Life-Guard Hussar Regiment. Bulatovich made his first trip to Ethiopia as a volunteer with the Medical Detachment of the Russian Red Cross at the Italo-Abyssinian military actions in 1896, when Menelik soundly beat the Italians in their attempt to take over his domain from the north. Bulatovich then stayed on to explore the western part of Ethiopia. Bulatovich was so successful in his relationship with the Abyssinians that Russia sent an Extraordinary Diplomatic Mission to the court of Menelik. When he arrived in Addis, Menelik invited him to accompany one of his armies heading off on conquest expeditions.

At the end of this long journey of conquest with Ras Wolda Giyorgis's army, Bulatovich returned to Russia, wrote his second book 'With The Armies Of Menelik II' and then became a monk at Mount Athos in Greece. He eventually retired to the family farm, where he was murdered by robbers in 1919.

Ethiopia Through Russian Eyes: Country In Transition 1896-1898 by Alexander Bulatovich & translated by Richard Seltzer (2000). This book is a translation of two books in Russian by Alexander Bultovich - 'From Enttoto To The River Baro (1897) and 'With The Armies Of Menelik II (1900). This extraordinary book is set against the backdrop of the ‘Scramble for Africa’, when various colonial powers were carving the continent up amongst themselves. There was, in addition, to these nations, an African 'scrambler' - Menelik II, the king of Shoa of Ethiopia, who was looking to expand his power base. As Russia was not among the 'scrambling' nations, they decided to frustrate those who were and were sympathetic to Menelik's explansion plans. The book includes the diary entries during the author's journey with one of Menelik's armies, plus an extraordinary account of an elephant hunt.

Malcolm Burr

Malcolm Burr (1878 - 1954) was an English author, translator, entomologist and geologist. He specialised in earwigs and was the first to classify earwigs and particularly the biology of the earwigs of Sri Lanka.

A Fossicker In Angola by Malcolm Burr (1933) is an entertaining account of the travels through Angola in the early 1930s of the geologist and entomologist Malcolm Burr. "During two years prospecting in Africa, the greater part of the time in Portuguese Angola, the Author carefully observed everything which came within his reach. Happily he saw the lighter side of adventure, as is revealed in the pages of his book." A 'fossicker' is someone who rummages or searches around in a slightly aimless manner for an item of interest, so may refer to the author's search for insects or geological specimens in Angola.

Alan Caillou

Alan Caillou was the nom de plume of Alan Samuel Lyle-Smythe (1914 – 2006) who was an English-born author, actor, screenwriter, soldier, policeman and professional hunter. Prior to World War II, he served with the Palestine Police from 1936 to 1939, learning Arabic. Due to his linguistic skills, he transferred to the Intelligence Corps and served in the Western Desert, in which he used the surname "Caillou" (the French word for 'pebble') as an alias. Following the war, he returned to the Palestine Police from 1946 to 1947, then served as a Police Commissioner in British-occupied Italian Somaliland from 1947 to 1952, where he was recommissioned a captain. After work as a District Officer in Somalia and as an African professional hunter, Lyle-Smythe travelled to Canada, where he continued to hunt and became an actor on Canadian television.

Alan Samuel Lyle-Smythe wrote more than 53 'thriller' novels using various pseudonyms, many of which were made into movies.

Sheba Slept Here: A Delightful Reminiscence Of Ethiopia And The Twilight Of British Colonial Life by Alan Caillou (1973) is the author's amusing account of his 2 years serving as the Police Commissioner a large part of the territory belonging to Ethiopia, which was declared a Reserved Area supervised by Britain. He became responsible for law and order in a territory which included the Danakil desert plain, mountains, two small towns and a railway line whose boundaries were defined as about 300 miles long and 20 feet wide.

J C Cairns

John C Cairns (d. 2014) was born of Scottish parents who emigrated to Canada in 1913. He served in the Canadian Airforce and after gaining a MA in English, he moved to Tangayika as a District Officer. His wife, Beverley J Cairns, illustrated this book.

Bush & Boma by J C Cairns (1959) is an account of East-African life by the author who worked for six and a half years as a District Officer at Kilwa, Mikindani and Dar es Salaam in Tanganyika. Tales of events at the Boma (the office) which is the focus of ceasless complaints and disputes. Cairns job included being a magistrate, prison officer, head of police, tax collector, issue of game licence, forestry permits and vermin destruction.

R N Callander

Ronald Norcott Callander (b.1933) was born in Australia and served in the Australian Regular Army as a lieutenant during the Korean War before he became a colonial police officer in Tanganyika in the lead-up to that country's independence. He is now an author, playwright, poet and journalist.

One Beat Of A Butterfly's Heart: A Tanganyika Police Notebook by R N Callander (2014) is the tale of how an Australian veteran, fresh from the Korean War, became a colonial police officer in Tanganyika Territory in the 1950s. It is about the country itself, its animals and its people at close range, including villagers, criminals, hunters, witch doctors and colonial officials, but most of all, the African askari policemen who were the author’s close companions.

Michael Callender

Leopard On A Razor Wire by Michael Callender (2011) is the story of an adventurer, Michael Callender, who is of Scots/Irish descent and who lived for 40 years in the Republic of South Africa. His title is an apt description of an extraordinary land that is made up of a brilliant scenery, charismatic peoples and an inheritance of savagery. The leopard is a creation of beauty, razor wire a symbol of harshness. The author believes this summarises South Africa - a country of raw contradiction. Michael Callender presents a collection of rousing stories as a British immigrant who witnessed the peak of apartheid in the late 1960s to the 'New South Africa' as termed today.

Sir Donald Cameron

Sir Donald Charles Cameron (1872 – 1948) was the British colonial governor of Tanganyika and later the governor of Nigeria.

My Tanganyika Service, And Some Nigeria by Donald Cameron (1939) is a biographical sketch of Sir Donald Cameron, Governor of Tanganyika 1925-31 and of Nigeria 1931-35. When he arrived in Tanganyika Cameron immediately set about attempting to win the support of the settlers. He also made it clear from the start that this was not just another British Colony: "We are here on behalf of the League of Nations to teach Africans to stand by themselves. When they can do that, we must get out".

Rod Cameron

A Dummy Goes To Africa by Rod Cameron (1962) is an account of a missionary who travelled to Rhodesia and Nyasaland with his family and his ventriloquist dummy.

Roderick Cameron

Roderick William Cameron (1913 - 1985) was an American history and travel author.

Equator Farm by Roderick Cameron (1955) is based on an extended visit to a family farm in near Lake Baringo, in the White Highlands during the Mau Mau Emergency. The author evokes many aspects of settler life in Kenya at this period. Other chapters deal with Mau Mau, the coast, Lamu, Zanzibar, the Masai & Uganda in the early 1950s.

Lloyd Camp

Africa Bites: Scrapes And Escapes In The African Bush by Lloyd Camp (2015). This book "takes you on an evocative journey through some of the wildest places in Africa as he re-lives colourful vignettes from his adventurous childhood and long career as a safari guide. This is a charming, funny, thoughtful and often hair-raising series of short stories that illustrate Lloyd's enthusiastic delight in leading his clients into the wilderness areas of Africa".

Confessions Of An African Safari Guide: Truths, Tales And Taboos Of The Safari Life by Lloyd Camp (2020). From the book synopsis ... "In Confessions, Lloyd’s thoughtful stories continue to intrigue, provoke and amuse. The enthralling and often bizarre world of safari guiding continually delivers evocative theatre; now, Lloyd reveals some of the truths and tricks that ensure a dazzling safari experience, while also underscoring the fervour, foibles and frailties of safari guides".

W W Campbell

William Wallace Campbell was a member of the British civilian army during World War I, who travelled in German and Portuguese East Africa by motor vehicle.

East Africa By Motor Lorry: Recollections Of An Ex-Motor Transport Driver by W W Campbell (1928) recalls the daily challenges that East Africa posed for the motorist alongside details of the country and the customs of its people, on his way from Dar es Salaam into the interior of Portuguese East Africa. There are interesting references to General von Lettow-Vorbeck and others throughout the work.

"My object in writing these reminiscences is to place on record a true account of work undertaken in a strange and savage country by inexperienced city men, called out from the comfort of their own homes and from the blessings of civilised surroundings, by the exigencies of war, to a new and little-dreamt-of exploratory campaign the like of which, inasmuch as the motor car played such a unique part, will probably never happen again - at least not as we knew it."

Philip Caputo

Philip Caputo (b. 1941) is an American author and journalist. Research for 'Ghosts Of Tsavo' entailed spending a few weeks in the Tsavo National Park in Kenya on two separate trips. One trip was a safari led by a professional game guide and the other a scientific mission led by Craig Packer of the University of Minnesota, whom Caputo says is the world's foremost expert on the Serengeti lion.

Ghosts Of Tsavo: Tracking The Mythic Lions Of East Africa by Philip Caputo (2002). Accompanied by a photographer, two scientists and a few armed rangers, Philip Caputo set out through the forbidding plains Tsavo in search of Africa's most feared and efficient killers - massive maneless lions with a man-eating reputation. Over the past century, speculation about the ghostlike killers has gone unanswered, although recent studies suggest that the maneless lions may constitute a feline missing link between modern lions and their prehistoric ancestors. Therein lies the quest driving the expedition to find a scientific explanation for these fierce creatures and why they occasionally prey on humans. This vivid narrative of a scientific journey is a riveting work from one of America's finest writers. Kindle Version

F G Carnochan & C H Adamson

Frederic Grosvenor Carnochan (1890 - 1952) was an American businessman, explorer, author and amateur ethnologist. He made three journeys to Africa - first, in 1925 as part of the Smithsonian-Chrysler Expedition to collect specimens for the National Zoological Park, Washington DC. Then, from 1928 to 1931 and 1932 to 1935, to make independent ethnological studies.

Hans Christian Adamson (1890 - 1968) was a Danish-born American writer and reporter who also worked for the American Museum of Natural History. Along with his friend, Eddie Rickenbacker and the crew of their ditched bomber aircraft, he survived adrift in a life raft for 24 days in the Pacific Ocean in 1942.

The Empire Of The Snakes by F G Carnochan & C H Adamson (1935) is an account of the Wakaioka, the snake-people of the Nyamwezi tribe of the Tanganyika territory. He lived with them for more than two years and was received as a blood-brother of Kalola, the 'Emperor of the Snakes' and was initiated into their secret rituals.

Out Of Africa by F G Carnochan & C H Adamson (1937) is the life story of Kalola, head of the powerful Snake Guild of Africa, of which the authors have already written about in 'The Empire of the Snakes'. It is a biographical narrative based on the author's notes from several expeditions to British Tanganyika over a period of many years.

Frank G Carpenter

Frank George Carpenter (1855 - 1924) was an American journalist, photographer, lecturer and author of geography textbooks. His series of books called 'Carpenter's World Travels' were extremely popular between 1915 and 1930.

Uganda To The Cape by Frank G Carpenter (1924) documents the author's journey from Lake Victoria in Uganda to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa in the early 1920s.

Cairo To Kisumu: Egypt-Sudan-Kenya Colony by Frank G Carpenter (1923)is not an account of a single journey, but a composite based on the notes Carpenter made on several trips to Africa over many years. Included are chapters on Egypt, Sudan, the Suez Canal, transport on the Red Sea, Aden, the port of Mombasa, the Uganda Railway, Nairobi, big game hunting, the British role in East Africa, and the African peoples, including the Kikuyu and the Masai.

Richard Carrington

The Tears Of Isis: The Story Of A New Journey From The Mouth To The Source Of The River Nile by Richard Carrington (1959) is the account of the author's journey from Rosetta, at the mouth of the Nile, to Lake Victoria. He observed many aspects of Egypt's life and landscape. As well as visiting the pyramids, Luxor and Aswan, he was taken to a sugar factory, the Sennar Dam on the Blue Nile in Sudan and the Nimule National Park. The title of the book refers to the ancient Egyptian belief that rising of the Nile was caused by the tears of the goddess Isis.

Elephants: A Short Account Of Their Natural History, Evolution And Influence On Mankind by Richard Carrington (1959) is an enjoyable survey of the elephant's natural history including chapters on elephant hunting, preservation and control.

J B Carson

John Bairstow Carson (1913 - 1997) was born in England. After a spell in Canada, he spent 9 years as a District Officer and 10 years as District Commissioner in Kenya.

Sun, Sand And Safari: Some Leaves From A Kenya Notebook by J B Carson (1957) is about the experiences of a newly appointed District Officer's in Kenya. The author served for over twenty years in numerous locations in Kenya including the Rift Valley, Nyanza, the coast and Central Province. Includes much on big game, birds, scenery, climbing Kilimanjaro, tribal life and Kenya's history

Life Story Of A Kenya Chief by J B Carson (1958) is the story Chief Kasina Ndoo as told by J B Carson, a former District Officer of Kitui district, Kenya

Nello Casilli

The Italian Rock: My Recollections by Nello Casilli (2018) is a memoir of the author's journey, together with his brother, in a pre-war Fiat car from Rimini to the town of Kitwe, in the north of Zambia, at the time of the country's independence.

Susie Cazenove

Legendary Safari Guides by Susie Cazenove (2015) is about 24 photographic safari guides which are profiled by the author who is a safari travel promoter. She tells their stories of such adventures as having their tourist guests clinging to trees in the face of charging rhinos, of safaris with Mary Leaky and legends of the Masai warriors.

Licensed To Guide by Susie Cazenove (2006) is the author's earlier book about some of Africa's photographic safari guides. There are stories of how they roamed Africa having amusing and hair-raising experiences which include encounters with wounded buffalo and dramatic escapades with elephants.

Joe Ceurvorst

Joe Ceurvorst was a Belgian comic strip illustrator, translator and journalist who appears to have used several pseudonyms for his magazine artwork. In his early life, he worked on a ranch in the Canadian Rockies before he returned to Europe for military service in World War II.

Africa In A Jeep by Joe Ceurvorst (1956) is the account of Joe Ceurvorst's round-trip journey through Africa in his Willys MB jeep, which he nicknamed 'Mosquito'. He was accompanied by his young relative Jane Barbier and a dog called Pelish. He travelled 22000 miles from Belgium to Algiers, Lagos, Congo, Nairobi, Sudan, Egypt then back to Belgium. Ceurvorst chronicled his experiences in the 1952 book L'Afrique En Jeep: Sahara-Niger-Congo-Nil-35000 Km. The English translation was by Mervyn Savill, published in 1956.

F Spencer Chapman

Frederick Spencer Chapman 1907 - 1971) was a British Army officer and World War II veteran, known for his exploits behind enemy lines in Japanese occupied Malaya. He was a keen explorer and took part in expeditions to the Arctic, Greenland and in the Himalayas. He was also the author of several books about his life and journeys.

Lightest Africa by F Spencer Chapman (1955) is the tale the author's 8 month, 17000 mile journey across Africa with his wife, three young children (the eldest being six years old) and their nanny in a small van. Th 1953 they started in Cape Town and travelled through Basutoland, Swaziland, Belgian Congo, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Tanganyika, Nyasaland, Portuguese East Africa, the Zambesi, Southern Rhodesia, Ruanda and Burundi.

A D Charters

Dr Alan Dumergue Charters (1903 - 1996) worked at a mission hospital in Uganda before arriving in Kenya in 1932. He was appointed to the post of Resident Medical Officer at Nakuru War Memorial Hospital until 1962 when he departed to Western Australia.

Reminiscences Of East Africa And Western Australia In The Milestones Of A Doctor's Life, 1903-1984 by A D Charters (1985) is a memoir of the author's time as a doctor in Kenya and Australia. The cover picture may be a reference to his interest in entomology.

Hedley A Chilvers

Hedley Arthur Chilvers (1897 - 1941) was an English writer who emigrated to South Africa for health reasons in 1901. He became a journalist at the Rand Daily Mail and wrote several books about South African issues, including the gold mines, the story of DeBeers and the famous wandering hippo, Huberta.

The Seven Lost Trails Of Africa: A Record Of Sundry Expeditions, New And Old, In Search Of Buried Treasure by Hedley A Chilvers (1930) is about the exploits of African treasure-hunters. The seven lost treasure trails include: the way to the great valley of precious stones said to be in the wild hills to the north of the bend of the Orange River, the old diamond craters, the source of the diamonds scattered over South Africa; the diamonds and gold bars said to have been buried by a murderer in the banks of the Blyde River; the precise site of the shipwreck of the Grosvenor which sank with a great Indian treasure on the Pondo Coast in 1782; the Rhodesian treasure, in diamonds, gold and ivory buried by Lobengula, King of the Matabele, in 1893; the old silver mines of Chicova or Chicoa, on the North side of the Zambezi; the whereabouts of the second & larger half of the Cullinan diamond. Also, the missing Kruger millions and the lost goldfield of Madagascar.
More books by Hedley A Chilvers

F Stephen Clark

Congo Devil: Being An Account Of The Adventures Of Hickory Quist On Sea And Land by F Stephen Clark (c.1937) is a complete mystery ... is it fiction or non-fiction? This book appears to relate the adventures of a person called Hickory Quist in jungles of the Congo and aboard a riverboat skippered by a Capt Pluver ... told in the first person to the author.

Percy M Clark

Percy Missen Clark (1874 - 1937) was the first permanent white resident at Victoria Falls. He and his companions there were known as 'old drifters'. He set up a curio shop which he ran for 33 years, operated canoes, dugouts, a motor launch and a rickshaw service, in all, a very entrepreneurial character. With the advance of the railway, Percy Clark saw the tourist business potential and started creating photographic postcards, guide books and souvenir albums of the Falls.

The Autobiography Of An Old Drifter: The Life Story Of Percy M Clark Of Victoria Falls by Percy M Clark (1936). Percy Clarke lived at the Victoria Falls between 1903 and 1937 and his autobiography is full of fascinating reminiscences and anecdotes on the 'frontier' life in Rhodesia.

Victoria Falls: An Album by Percy M Clark & Rev Alban Heath (c.1907). A lovely old guide to the Victoria Falls full of photographs, Zambezi River history, Livingstone, wildlife, how to see the Falls and much more. Free eBook

Souvenir Of The Victoria Falls by Percy M Clark (c.1920) is collection of 12 sepia-toned photographs of the Victoria Falls which was produced as an early keepsake of a visit to this natural wonder.

Thurston Clarke

Thurston Clarke (b.1946) is an American historian, author and journalist.

Equator A Journey by Thurston Clarke (1988) is an account of a three-year trip around the world, crisscrossing the equator over three continents, from South America east to Africa, Asia and back to South America via the Pacific equatorial islands.

Frank Clements

Kariba: The Struggle With The River God by Frank Clements (1960) is the fascinating story of the building of the Kariba Dam in British south-central Africa, bordering what is today Zimbabwe and Zambia. The process displaced both human and wildlife populations and lead to a new ecosytem for the region as well as hydroelectric power. The author writes about the attempts to relocate the people and game animals displaced by the new Lake Kariba.

Rehna Cloete

Rehna 'Tiny' Mildred Cloete (d.1993) was an author, illustrator and second wife of author, Stuart Cloete.

The Nylon Safari by Rehna Cloete (1956) is a humorous account of a ten-month trans-Africa with her author-husband Stuart Cloete who was researching his book, 'The African Giant'.

Sir Alan J Cobham

Sir Alan John Cobham (1894 - 1973) was an English aviation pioneer. In 1928 he flew a Short Singapore flying boat around the continent of Africa landing only in British territories.

Twenty-Thousand Miles In A Flying Boat: My Flight Round Africa by Sir Alan J Cobham (1930) is the tale of a journey in a hydroplane from London, around Africa along the coastline and back. Lady Cobham accompanied her husband throughout the long journey and in so doing, established a record for air travel by a woman.

To The Ends Of The Earth: Memoirs Of A Pioneering Aviator by Sir Alan J Cobham (2007) combines accounts of two of the author's most memorable journeys, round the Cape and to Australia and back. Undertaken in the 1920s, these memoirs of the fantastic adventures reveal the trials and tribulations of travelling to the farthest corners of the globe in a de Havilland type 50 and a seaplane.

A Time To Fly: The Memoirs Of Sir Alan Cobham by Sir Alan J Cobham (1978) Edited by Christopher Derrick. The early life of the pioneer aviator and aviation engineer Sir Alan Cobham who founded Berkshire Aviation Company which operated pleasure flights in the 1920's and 30's. He also made a significant contribution to the British war effort through research and development of flight refuelling.

Colonel Henry Edward Colvile

Major-General Sir Henry Edward Colvile (1852 – 1907) was an British soldier serving in many campaigns and battles in the Sudan, Uganda and South Africa. In 1893 he succeeded the late Sir Gerald Portal as Commissioner for Uganda, commanded the Unyoro Expedition, which resulted in the inclusion of that country into the Protectorate for which he received the Central Africa Medal. His second wife was Zélie Isabelle Richaud de Préville who wrote 2 books about her journeys in Africa.

The Land Of The Nile Springs by Colonel Henry Edward Colvile (1895) "Being chiefly an account of how we fought Kabarega". Kabarega was the ruler of Bunyoro in Uganda from 1870 to 1899. The book is written in a no-nonsense, dry and ironic style which makes it interesting and very readable.

John Cooke

One White Man In Black Africa: From Kilimanjaro To The Kalahari 1951-91 by John Cooke (1991) is an account of the author's work as district officer in Tanganyika in the closing years of the British Empire. He spent forty years in Africa and his tale is told with self-effacing humour and evident understanding and love for Africa and its people.

Quentin Crewe

Quentin Hugh Crewe (1926 – 1998) was an English journalist, author, restaurateur and adventurer. He was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy when a young child and despite being relatively immobile for much of his life, he never ceased to travel and write about people and places. He spent a year travelling in the United States and the West Indies and having finally, at the age of 29, given in to the need of a wheelchair, he set off to spend a year in Japan. He made his first desert expedition in 1966, visiting the Empty Quarter, in Saudi Arabia to observe the vanishing life of the nomads as described by his friend Wilfred Thesiger in 'Arabian Sands'. In 1981 he set out on an 18-month journey through the Sahara, again to observe and record a way of life which was disappearing.

In Search Of The Sahara by Quentin Crewe (1983)is the account of a 2 year and 25,000 mile journey in the Sahara Desert taken by the author and the photographer, Timothy Beddow. It was not the most hospitable place, especially for a man in a wheelchair.

Hugh Cran

And Miles To Go Before I Sleep: A British Vet In Africa by Hugh Cran (2007). "After three years working as a young vet in rural Aberdeenshire, Hugh Cran decided that it was time for a change. He got it. He took a post in Kenya and, forty years later, he's still there, still working, still loving every exasperating, challenging, unexpected moment".

Alexander Cruickshank

The Kindling Fire: Medical Adventures In The Southern Sudan by Alexander Cruickshank (1962) is immensely readable account of a British doctor who spent years working with the local people in the remote marshes of southern Sudan. He built his own clinic there to perform surgical operations and treat leprosy, sleeping sickness, chronic fevers and all manner of injuries from wildlife. He had a particular interest in wildlife and hunting, so included a chapter titled 'Of Animals And Hunting' about bongos, snakes, buffalo, hippos, elephants and leopards which he found accounted for the most casualties among the natives, compared with all other dangerous animals.

Dorothy Beall Cunningham

Dorothy Beall Cunningham was a British author who is very likely to be the author of 'Wood And Iron', written in memory of her son, known as H U C, who was killed in World War I.

Wood And Iron: A Story Of Africa by Dorothy Beall Cunningham (1934) is the anonymous story of a planter's life in Uganda, written in memory of H U C, by his mother, who it is assumed was Dorothy Beall Cunningham. The title is listed as 'by the same author' in another book which was definitely written by Dorothy Beall Cunningham.

Sandy Curle & Christian Curle

Letters From The Horn Of Africa: 1923 - 1942: Sandy Curle, Soldier And Diplomat Extraordinary by Sandy Curle, edited by Christian Curle (2008) is the story of Sandy Curle who, at the age of 23, was seconded to the King’s African Rifles in 1923 to serve in remotest Somaliland. He was in sole charge of his men and the only European for miles and at one point, nearly died of typhoid fever. In 1929 Curle joined the Colonial Service again in Somaliland and Ethiopia, then as District Officer in Tanganyika. At the outbreak of World War II he rejoined the KAR and was attached to the Somaliland Camel Corps when the Italians invaded. His next assignment was to train and command a battalion of Ethiopian irregulars (Curle’s Irregulars) and with these he led the reoccupation of Ethiopia, receiving the DSO and Ethiopian Military Medal.

Arnold Curtis

Memories Of Kenya: Stories From The Pioneers edited by Arnold Curtis (1986) is a collection of extracts, letters, diaries and photographs from Kenyan pioneers during the period from the 1880s to the outbreak of World War II. With an introduction by Elspeth Huxley

Pioneers Scrapbook: Reminiscences Of Kenya 1890 To 1968 edited by Arnold Curtis & Elspeth Huxley (1980)includes reminiscences of Kenyan pioneer successes and failures in establishing homes, farms, shops, hotels, businesses and factories with humorous and dangerous anecdotes and descriptions of scenery and lifestyles.

Samuel Daniell

Samuel Daniell (1775 - 1811) was an English painter, best known as an artist of African animals.

African Scenery And Animals by Samuel Daniell (1976) is a Balkema facsimile of the classic Samuel Daniell 1804 folio with African animals, portrait studies, figures and landscapes.

Sketches Representing The Native Tribes, Animals, And Scenery Of Southern Africa by Samuel Daniell (1820) These sketches were engraved by William Daniell from drawings made by the late Samuel Daniell in South Africa.

Reginald Davies

The Camel's Back: Service In The Rural Sudan by Reginald Davies (1957) is an account of the author's 24 years as District Commissioner in the provinces of Kordofan and Darfur in the Sudan.

A Davis & H J Robertson

Alexander Davis (1861 - 1945) was a British born newspaper journalist and editor who became editor of the 'Leader' newspaper in Kenya.

Harold George Robertson (1884 - 1941) was a Scottish born journalist, author and editor of the 'Coast Guardian' and the 'Mombasa Times' newspapers in Kenya. Oddly the book was published with his initials as H J Robertson.

Chronicles Of Kenya by A Davis & H J Robertson (1928) is an interesting and humorous collection of stories about lives, politics and the characters in Kenya in the 1920s.

Hassoldt Davis

Hassoldt Davis (1907 - 1959) was an eccentric American adventurer and travel writer and film-maker.

Sorcerers' Village by Hassoldt Davis (1955) is a humorous account of the author's experiences, with his wife Ruth, searching for a secret school of magicians and witch doctors in the Ivory Coast. They spent a year filming, sound recording and making notes about cannibalism, tribal dances, fetishes and undergoing some of the rituals themselves.
More books by Hassoldt Davis

E C Dawson, editor

Bishop James Hannington (1847 - 1885) was an English Anglican missionary and martyr. He was the first Anglican bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa which included missions at the coast and inland in Buganda, a kingdom within Uganda.

Last Journals Of Bishop Hannington: Being Narratives Of A Journey Through Palestine in 1884 And A Journey Through Masai-Land And U-Soga in 1885 edited by E C Dawson (1888). The last journals written by Hannington cover the time leading up to his death. He was determined to pioneer a shorter and healthier highland route from the Kenya coast to Buganda, and was said to be oblivious to the political consequences of traversing Busoga, a strategically sensitive area for the Buganda state. The Kabaka (the title of the king) of Buganda Mwanga II, became suspicious of Hannington's motives that he could be coming to conquer Buganda. Mwanga forbade Hannington from continuing through Busoga and sent boats to take him to Sukumaland, but Hannington refused. So under the orders of Mwanga II of Buganda, the missionaries were imprisoned in Busoga by Basoga chiefs. After eight days of captivity, Hannington's porters were killed, and on 29 October 1885, Hannington was speared to death. Free eBook

Ralph Deakin

Ralph Deakin (1888 - 1952) was the Foreign News Editor of 'The Times' newspaper.

The Tour of The Prince Of Wales To Africa And South America by Ralph Deakin (1926). In March 1925 the Prince of Wales set out with the battle-cruiser Repulse for a journey to British West Africa and to the three republics in South Africa which were 'well disposed'. Most of this book is a travelogue.

Frank Debenham

Frank Debenham (1883 - 1965) was an Australian-born professor of geography at Cambridge University and first director of the Scott Polar Research Institute. He retired from the Polar Institute in 1946 and from his chair in 1949 and travelled extensively in Africa, publishing on such subjects as the water resources of arid regions, the construction of small earthen dams, the ecology of the Kalahari and on David Livingstone.

Kalahari Sand by Frank Debenham (1953) is an account of two expeditions in the Kalahari Desert, which occupied most of the Bechuanaland Protectorate (now Botswana) in southern Africa. The author's primary reasons for going there was to assess the water resources, the people, the animals, the birds and the plant life. Free eBook

Nyasaland: The Land Of The Lake by Frank Debenham (1955) is a vivid and readable account of the author's journey in Nyasaland, now Malawi.

The Way To Ilala: David Livingstone's Pilgrimage by Frank Debenham (1955) is a biography of David Livingstone which concentrates on the geographical aspects of David Livingstone's travels in Africa. Livingstone spent about 30 years journeying through unexplored Africa before he died at Ilala.

Sidney De La Rue

Sidney De La Rue (1888 - 1973) was a member of the US State Department and an advisor on African Affairs. From 1921 to 1928, he served in Liberia as Auditor, General Receiver and Financial Advisor.

The Land Of The Pepper Bird: Liberia by Sidney De La Rue (1930) is an account of the author's life in the Liberia where he worked for a number of years as a US government financial advisor. It includes much on the native cults, superstitions and 'black magic'.

Joseph Delmont

Joseph Delmont (1873 - 1935) was an Austrian film director and author. In his early life he became a trapeze artist in a travelling circus. He was under 16 years old when he embarked on his global animal capturing adventures.

Catching Wild Beasts Alive by Joseph Delmont (1931) describes his life, traveling around the globe, trapping live animals for zoos and circuses in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He gives descriptions of trapping techniques, as well as offering his notes on unusual behaviour in species he studied. Free eBook

Armand Denis

Armand Denis (1896 - 1971) was a Belgian-born documentary film-maker who engaged the services of American professional hunter Al Klein for his pioneering film work in Africa.

On Safari: The Story Of My Life by Armand Denis (1963) is the story of how a man threw up a safe job to indulge in his lifelong passions - travel, animals and photography. Describes surmounting dangers and difficulties to come to close quarters with extraordinary creatures and primitive peoples. A famous figure for his films and TV series. Free eBook

Michaela Denis

Michaela Denis (1914 - 2003) was a British-born wildlife documentary film-maker and presenter, working with her husband, Armand Denis. She started out as a fashion designer before marrying Armand Denis. In order to finance their plans to make wildlife documentaries, the couple travelled to Africa in 1950 to work on the feature film, King Solomon's Mines, in which Michaela acted as Deborah Kerr's double.

Leopard In My Lap by Michaela Denis (1955) recounts the author's exciting adventures with her photographer husband in places such as Africa, South America and Australia.

Ride A Rhino by Michaela Denis (1959) is the author's second book following 'Leopard In My Lap' which starts with her return to their new house in Kenya which Armand designed and built. With nearly 100 animals around the house, the book is full of anecdotes that show that animals have their own individuality.

Click here to buy the Wheels Across Africa - Rare 1936 African Safari Film with Armand Denis - Explorations of the Sahara and the Congo in DVD.

Alberto Denti di Pirajno

Alberto Denti di Pirajno (1886 - 1968) was an Italian author, medical doctor and the governor of Tripoli, Libya, from 1941 until 1943, when he surrendered the city to British forces.

A Cure For Serpents: A Doctor In Africa by Alberto Denti di Pirajno (1955) recounts the author's life in Italy's former North African colonies, both as a doctor and an administrator - colonial governor of Tripoli. Set in Libya, Ethiopia and Somaliland, the book is a collection of anecdotes about various places he visited in his work as a physician in North Africa in the 1920s and the people he met, which includes tribal chieftains, Berber princes, courtesans and Tuareg tribesmen and a lioness, which became part pet and part guard.

C W Domville-Fife

Charles William Domville-Fife (b.1886) was a British naval officer who specialised in submarines, writing several books on submarine warfare. He was also a correspondent for the Times newspaper, world traveller and author of travel books.

Savage Life In The Black Sudan by C W Domville-Fife (1927) is 'an account of an adventurous journey of exploration amongst wild & little known tribes inhabiting swamps, dense forests, mountain-tops & arid deserts hitherto almost unknown, with a description of their manner of living, secret societies & mysterious & barbaric rites'.

Fred A Donnithorne

Wonderful Africa: Being The 7,000 Miles Travel In South And South Central Africa by Fred A Donnithorne (1924) is an account of the author's holiday journey in Africa. He was an architect by profession and so is at his best when describing the ruins of Great Zimbabwe and the bridge over the Victoria Falls.

S S Dornan

Reverend Samuel Shaw Dornan (1871 - 1941) was a British Presbyterian missionary, geologist and anthropologist. He went to South Africa during the Anglo-Boer War (1899 - 1902). He later joined the Paris Evangelical Mission in Basutoland (now Lesotho) where in addition to his missionary work he studied the customs and languages of the indigenous people and surveyed the geology of parts of the country for the government.

Pygmies And Bushmen Of The Kalahari by S S Dornan (1925) is "An Account of the Hunting Tribes Inhabiting the Great Arid Plateau of the Kalahari Desert, Their Precarious Manner of Living, Their Habits, Customs & Beliefs, with Some Reference to Bushman Art, Both Early & of Recent". The book includes topics such as prehistoric man in the Kalahari, Hottentot and Bushmen languages, divination totemism, paintings and chippings, the cult of the witch-doctor and the Sechuana language.

Henry Drummond

Henry Drummond (1851 – 1897) was a Scottish evangelist, biologist, writer and lecturer who was sent to make a geological exploration of the district between lakes Nyasa and Tanganyika for the African Lakes Company.

Tropical Africa by Henry Drummond (1888) is the author's account of his 1883 journey to the southern equatorial region of Africa, which is Malawi today. Although he failed to reach Lake Tanganyika he subsequently published 'Tropical Africa' in which he argued that British involvement in the region was essential to put down the slave trade, even if it meant the extermination of elephants - as the ivory trade relied on slaves to carry the tusks. Free eBook

Book About Henry Drummond:

George Adam Smith

The Life Of Henry Drummond by George Adam Smith (1898) is a biography of Henry Drummond, scientist, evangelist, author of many books including the sermon, 'The Greatest Thing in the World'. Free eBook

David Ewing Duncan

From Cape To Cairo: An African Odyssey by David Ewing Duncan (1989) is an account of the author's bicycle trek from Cape Town to Cairo in 1986-1987. Duncan's travelogue portrays a continent in deep trouble. Against a background of escalating violence, a Boer farmer told the bicyclist that apartheid was immoral and was ruining South Africa. In an interview in Zambia, president Kenneth Kaunda confessed his belief that centralized socialism breeds corruption. War-torn, debt-ridden Sudan, where Arabs and blacks fought each other with US jets and Russian missiles, struck Duncan as "an utter disaster". In Egypt he found crushing overpopulation, omnipresent dust, but also a knack for urban living.

Gordon Dyus

The Twilight Of The Bwanas by Gordon Dyus (2003) is both a light hearted and serious history of the bwanas and memsahibs of East Africa. The book includes the personal experiences and favourite anecdotes of a wide circle of former East Africans.

Robert Easton & Mackenzie Brown

Charles Jesse Jones, known as Buffalo Jones (1844 - 1919) was an American frontiersman, farmer, rancher, hunter and conservationist. In 1909 Jones persuaded the Massachusetts industrialist Charles S Bird to finance a game-catching expedition to Kenya. Along with two cowboys (Marshall Loveless and Ambrose Mearns), white hunter Ray Ulyate, several expert horsemen with their own American cow ponies and many porters, Jones travelled to Nairobi. They roped warthogs, elands, zebras, rhinoceros and a lioness, which lived at a zoo in New York until 1921. Jones also employed two filmographers who documented his activities. He then showed his films across the United States, including a performance at Carnegie Hall in New York City, in which he narrated the highlights of his hunting trip. In 1914, Jones organized a second but unsuccessful African hunting trip for a gorilla.

Lord Of Beasts: The Saga Of Buffalo Jones by Robert Easton & Mackenzie Brown (1961) is the tale of an extraordinary man - frontiersman, buffalo hunter (who later turned to their conservation and cross breeding them with domestic cattle), Indian fighter and more. He was an expert with the lasso and in his time lassooed rhino, lion, gorillas among many other exotic species in the wild. A most entertaining read about an extraordinary man.

Read more about Buffalo Jones in 'Lassoing Wild Animals In Africa' by Guy Scull, Jone's field manager. Also Zane Grey's biography of Buffalo Jones

LaVerna Ediger

Worth It All: A Saga Of A Family's Life In East Africa by LaVerna Ediger (2001) is a memoir of life in a missionary family in Ethiopia.

Stephen John Edwards

Zambezi Odyssey: A Record Of Adventure On A Great River Of Africa by Stephen John Edwards (1974) is an account of the author's exploits during his canoe trip along the Zambezi Rver.

G F Scott Elliot

George Francis Scott Elliot (1862 – 1934) was an India-born botanist and author with French and Scottish parents. He was commemorated in the scientific name of a species of African chameleon, Trioceros ellioti.

A Naturalist In Mid-Africa: Being An Account Of A Journey To The Mountains Of The Moon And Tanganyika by G F Scott Elliot (1896) is an account of the author's journey via Tanganyika to Ruwenzori and then from Uganda to Mombasa, after which he reached Zanzibar in 1893. Elliot studied the geology, meteorology, climate and botany of the areas he visited, as well as describing his experiences whilst travelling. His work made a valuable contribution to the knowledge of African botany.

Alfred Burdon Ellis

Alfred Burdon Ellis (1852 - 1894) first travelled out to West Africa in the early 1870s as a Captain in the First West India Regiment. Subsequently he was civil commandant of Sekondi and Chamer on the Gold Coast in 1874, district commander of Quittah in 1878 and of Accra in 1879, commander of the Haussa Constabulary 1878 and chief officer of the troops on the Gold Coast in 1882 and in 1886. He received the medal for the Third Ashanti War and was employed in the Intelligence Department during the Zulu War. He died of fever in Tenerife in 1894, just 42 years old.

The Land Of Fetish by Alfred Burdon Ellis (1883) is a rare account of service in West Africa.

Victor Englebert

Victor Englebert (1933 - 2015) was Belgian self-taught anthropologist, explorer, photographer and author who spent several decades studying and documenting the cultures and traditions of remote and little-known peoples around the world. He worked extensively for National Geographic, producing numerous articles and books on his travels and experiences.

Wind, Sand And Silence: Travels With Africa's Last Nomads by Victor Englebert (1992) is a photographic record of the author's twenty-six years (1965 to 1991) living and travelling with the nomads of Africa. Englebert journeyed across the Sahara with two Tuareg men, joined a salt caravan travelling on camels through the bleak Tenere desert, lived with the elusive Bororo, travelled with the Danakil who, until recently, considered it their duty to kill intruders and he lived with the fiercely independent Turkana, who are in constant conflict with other nomads over scarce pasture and water in their territory.

Richard Evans

A Medical Safari by Richard Evans (2006) is a memoir of a surgeon who worked in Uganda, then Tanzania and finally, after a short stint in Ireland, in the New Hebrides. He set up new clinics, learned about mysterious local remedies, camped out in game parks on safari, coped with war between Uganda and Tanzania and helped out on a royal visit to East Africa.

Dorothea Fairbridge

Dorothea Fairbridge (1862 - 1931) was a South African author and historian.

The Pilgrim's Way In South Africa by Dorothea Fairbridge (1928). The book discusses the early development of South Africa and provides interesting glimpses of what the traveller of the 1920s saw in South Africa.

A History Of South Africa by Dorothea Fairbridge (1918) is a scholarly study, vividly written, about the Cape Colony, dating back to ancient Egyptian visits, through early European explorers and European settlers, ending with the establishment of the Union of South Africa. Free eBook

J C Edwald Falls

Three Years in the Libyan Desert: Travels, Discoveries, And Excavations Of The Menas Expedition by J C Edwald Falls (1913) is the journal of the 1905 expedition, led by the German archaeologist, Karl Maria Kaufmann (1872 - 1951), to explore the Christian sites in Cyrenaica on the eastern coastal region of Libya. Despite difficulties, many important finds were made including the site dedicated to the 4th century Christian martyr, Menas.

Lionel Ferguson

Henry Albert Lionel Ferguson (d. 1966) and his friend John Esplen randomly decided to go to Lake Tana during their long summer break while at Cambridge University. After spotting a 'blue blob' in an atlas, the idea of the so-called 'Lake Tana Expedition 1953' was conceived. John Esplen later in a BBC interview said the trip to the shores of Lake Tana was to gather material for an examination thesis.

Into The Blue: The Lake Tana Expedition 1953 by Lionel Ferguson (1955) is the account of 5 undergraduates travelling in a fixed-up station wagon with a Ford V8 engine, from Dover to Gibralter, across north Africa to Ethiopia. The homeward journey was via Damascas and Ankara. After 2 months on the road, they found a nice villa to stay in and were rather disappointed with Lake Tana, finding it rather 'muddy' and 'ruffled'.

Giles Foden

Mimi And Toutou Go Forth: The Bizzare Battle Of Lake Tanganyika by Giles Foden (2004). At the start of WWI, German warships controlled Lake Tanganyika which was of great strategic value in Central Africa. In June 1915, a force of 28 men was despatched from Britain to take control of the lake. To reach it, under the eccentric naval officer called Geoffrey Spicer-Simson, they had to haul 2 small motor gunboats with the unlikely names of Mimi and Toutou through the wilds of the Congo.

Peter Forbath

The River Congo: The Discovery, Exploration And Exploitation Of The World's Most Dramatic River by Peter Forbath (1977) is an account of the events involved with the Congo River from the 1400s, when Portugal had a presence there, to 1977, the year the book was published. It tells the story of exploration in sub-Saharan Africa, including the journeys of Livingstone and Stanley. It also covers the role of Leopold II of Belgium when he succeeded in obtaining control of the Congo.

Vernon S Forbes

Vernon Siegfried Forbes (1905 - 1993) was an eminent South African geographer and author who took part in expeditions to the Arctic, Greenland and travelled extensively in India, the Far East and Australasia.

Pioneer Travellers In South Africa: A Geographical Commentary Upon Routes, Records, Observations And Opinions Of Travellers At The Cape 1750-1800 by Vernon S Forbes (1965) is an account of the time between 1750 and 1800 which saw advances in exploration of the interior of southern Africa. Pioneer travellers included are August Frederik Beutler, who headed an epic expedition eastward from Cape Town; Carl Peter Thunberg, a Swedish botanist who collected plant specimens; Francis Masson, a Scottish botanist and Kew Gardens’ first plant hunter; Andrew Sparrman, a Swedish physician and naturalist; Hendrik Swellengrebel, the Dutch East India Company governor; William Paterson, another Scottish botanical collector; Robert Jacob Gordon, a Dutch explorer (of Scottish descent), naturalist and linguist; and John Barrow, an English geographer.

Gavin Ford

A Safari Guide's Tale From Zimbabwe: The Zambezi Valley, Matusadona And Mana Pools by Gavin Ford (2015) is a collection of short stories and memories of a Zimbabwean professional guide. After Zimbabwe's independence in 1980, he joined a safari company on Fothergill Island, Kariba. Then after gaining his professional guide licence, he leads wilderness trails of four to six day duration into the Matusadona and Mana Pools National Parks.

Steven James Foreman

To Hear The Lion Roar: Adventures In Africa by Steven James Foreman (2015) is a memoir covering 21 years of Foreman's life from late 1992 to early 2014. It relates how, at the age of 40, he gave up all he had and went to Tanzania, to seek work with wildlife and find a life of adventure in Africa. After many years he became a safari guide and wildlife expert. However, in order to make ends meet, he reverted to his previous job and became a security contractor and adviser, working in armed security and counter-terrorism roles in remote and often hostile regions of South Sudan, the wilderness of Turkana, northern Kenya and the desert of eastern Ethiopia.

Marius Fortie

Marius Fortie was an Italian-born American who worked in a European trading company in German East Africa before and during the First World War. He was highly critical of the European, particularly the British, colonial powers in Africa.

Black And Beautiful: A Life In Safari Land by Marius Fortie (1938). This is an autobiographical work for the years 1901-1909, 1917-1920 and 1932-1935 of time spent in Tanganyika Territory, formerly German East Africa. He noted there is accuracy in events, but not always in names, chronology or topography, to protect friends from reprisal either by "petty white administrators" or native chiefs looking to "curry the white man's favor and rewards."

Alan Forward

"You Have Been Allocated Uganda": Letters From A District Officer by Alan Forward (1999) is a memoir of a career in the British Colonial Service as a young District Officer who became Private Secretary to the last Governor of Uganda, Sir Walter Coutts. The book is written as a series of retrospective letters to a friend in England and describes the social, economic and political development of Uganda leading to independence in 1962. He also writes about a trek around the Mountains of the Moon (Ruwenzori), a climb up Mount Elgon and visits to the Murchison Falls and the Queen Elizabeth National Park.

Grant Fowlds & Graham Spence

Saving The Last Rhinos: The Life Of A Frontline Conservationist by Grant Fowlds & Graham Spence (2019) is about the author's life on the front line of conservation & protecting rhino against armed poachers, and in the longer term through his work with schoolchildren, communities and policymakers.

James Fox

White Mischief by James Fox (1982). Just before 3am on January 24th 1941, the body of Josslyn Hay, Earl of Erroll, was discovered lying on the floor of his Buick, at a road intersection some miles outside Nairobi, with a bullet in his head. A leading figure in Kenya's colonial community, he had recently been appointed Military Secretary, but he was primarily a seducer of other men's wives. Sir Henry Delves Broughton, whose second wife was Erroll's current conquest, had an obvious motive for the murder, but no one was ever convicted and the question of who killed him became a classic mystery, a scandel and cause celebre. Among those who became fascinated with the Erroll case was Cyril Connolly. He joined up with James Fox for a major investigation of the case in 1969 for the Sunday Times magazine. After his death James Fox inherited the obsession and a commitment to continue in pursuit of the story both in England and Kenya in the late 1970s. One day, on a veranda overlooking the Indian Ocean, Fox came across a piece of evidence that seemed to bring all the fragments and pieces together and convinced him that he saw a complete picture.

Sir Henry Delves Broughton and his first wife, Lady Vera were hunting clients of Bror Blixen and later with his second wife, Diana, clients of J A Hunter.

Click here to buy the movie White Mischief on DVD.

R Austin Freeman

Dr Richard Austin Freeman (1862 – 1943) was a British writer of detective novels for which he used some of his early experiences as a colonial surgeon. He entered the Colonial Service in 1887 as an assistant surgeon in Ghana, then he volunteered for the post of medical officer, naturalist and surveyor on a planned expedition to Ashanti and Jaman which were two independent states in the Gold Coast.

Travels And Life In Ashanti And Jaman by R Austin Freeman (1898) is a narrative of the author's journey, as a medical officer and a Boundary Commissioner, through the Gold Coast (now Ghana) with observations on malaria and other diseases, commercial outlook, relations with England, the peoples, villages, customs, dress and the dense forests. Free eBook

Robert R Frump

The Man-Eaters of Eden: Life And Death In Kruger National Park by Robert R Frump (2006). An alarming problem is taking place in South Africa's Kruger National Park, where Mozambican refugees are being eaten alive by lions as they attempt to enter South Africa by walking across the Park. This deftly written study examines the park's two thousand lions, the refugees and the result of their crossed paths. Kindle Version Buy The Man-Eaters of Eden: Life and Death in Kruger National Park Audio Book

The Spirit Lions: Tracking The Magical Man-eaters Of Tanzania by Robert Frump (2011) is a short book about the author's expedition, with a bunch of scientists, an American tracker and trapper, plus a German film crew to help trap, dart and then keep track of the man-eating lions in the southern and Selous areas of Tanzania. Kindle version only.

Rob Fynn

Angel In A Thorn Bush by Rob Fynn (2012) is the tale of the author's life and struggles building a big safari lodge in Zimbabwe, Fothergill Island on Lake Kariba, and raising a family of there.

Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin and Alberto Tessore

Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin (1936 - 2006) was Poet Laureate of Ethiopia, as well as a poet, playwright, essayist and art director.

Ethiopia: A Footprint In Time by Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin and Alberto Tessore (1985) is a magnificent series of photos by Alberto Tessore, one of Italy's finest artists of the camera and written by one of the leading Ethiopian playwrights and poets.

P-D Gaisseau

Pierre-Dominique Gaisseau (1923 - 1997) was a French explorer and documentary filmmaker. His lifelong interest in ethnography and man's origins led him to explore in Africa, South America and New Guinea. In 1951 he travelled to Guinea, Africa, where he spent time among the Nalou, the Bassari and the Toma, whose secret initiation rites he was permitted to film, after himself submitting to a tribal initiation. The resulting documentary, 'Forêt Sacrée' (1952) won first prize at the 1953 Basle film festival. Gaisseau's book of the same name was translated into eight languages. Read more about the life of Pierre-Dominique Gaisseau

The Sacred Forest: Magic And Secret Rites In French Guinea by P-D Gaisseau (1954) is the account a French photographer-author who nearly got himself and his three photographer companions killed when trying to photograph the sacred practices of the African Toma tribe in the wilds of Guinea. The Toma's sacred rites included fetishism, savage male and female initiations and other practices.

John Gale

Travels With A Son by John Gale (1973) is an account of a trip across parts of Africa by Jeep in 1970 by British journalist John Gale (1925 - 1974), his son James and photojournalist friend Ian Berry. Starting in Morocco, they crossed the Spanish Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Mali, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast and Ghana.

Jeremy Gavron

King Leopold's Dream: Travels In The Shadow Of The African Elephant by Jeremy Gavron (1993) is an account (now rather dated) by a former British journalist who had a personal interest in elephants. He returned to Africa to talk to scientists, game wardens, rangers, hunters, poachers and ivory smugglers about the conflict between wildlife advocates and the needs of the increasing human population. The title references the decree issued by King Leopold II of Belgium to tame African elephants to work in the Congo.

Henry Geddes

Gorilla by Henry Geddes (1955) is a film cameraman's account of filming wild western gorillas in the Congo near the Gabon border. He teamed up with an American film director and stuntman, Yakima Canutt. With hundreds of local helpers, Geddes planned to surround a gorilla family with a wire mesh net, then lure them into a clearing and into a cage. After this plan failed, Canutt lassoed a young male which was sent to Brazzaville zoo. However much gorilla film footage was obtained finally without any gorillas being harmed. Some of the footage was used in the 1953 film, 'Mogambo'.

William Edgar Geil

William Edgar Geil (1865 - 1925) was an American author, traveller and orator.

A Yankee In Pigmyland by William Edgar Geil (1905) is an account of a journey from Bombay to Mombasa, and via the Uganda railway into Uganda and finally the Belgian Congo. Nairobi scarcely rates a mention - in 1903 it had barely a hundred European inhabitants. Interesting and readable account of an East and Central African journey and its traditional inhabitants in the earliest days of European penetration of the continent. Free eBook

John W Gerrard

John Watson Gerrard (1916 - 2013) was born in Zambia where his father, Herbert Shaw Gerrard, was a medical missionary for 19 years in Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia) and 7 years in Kenya.

John W Gerrard grew up in Britain where he trained as a doctor, becoming a paediatrician. In 1955, he and his family moved to Saskatoon, Canada where he was founding head of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Saskatchewan.

Africa Calling: A Medical Missionary In Zambia And Kenya by John W Gerrard (2001) is based on the letters of Herbert and Doris Gerrard, the parents of the author. Herbert Gerrard was a medical missionary who served in Zambia and Kenya for 26 years. It is an account of medical practice in the most difficult conditions. While on treks or "hut calls" or in the mission hospitals, Gerrard dealt with a huge range of medical problems from gastro-enteritis, measles and malaria to leprosy - a whole range of tropical diseases.

André Gide

André Paul Guillaume Gide (1869 – 1951) was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature. In 1926 he traveled through the French Equatorial Africa colony, to Middle Congo (now the Republic of the Congo), Ubangi-Shari (now the Central African Republic), briefly to Chad and then to Cameroon before returning to France.

Travels In The Congo by André Gide (1929) is an account of the author's long trip in the French tropical colony, made by boat, car, tipoye (armchair suspended between poles which is carried by porters), horse and foot. Gide was horrified by his findings and presented a challenging indictment of the callous exploitation of the Africans which exerted a strong influence on French opinion regarding colonial policy.

A Cameron Gilg

Turn Left - The Riffs Have Risen by A Cameron Gilg (1981) is the author's account of driving from Liverpool, England to Cape Town in a 8hp Morris Minor tourer in 1933. Cameron Gilg travelled with Walter Kay and they became the drivers of the first light car to achieve such an epic journey of 13370 miles, including crossing the Sahara. It includes details of the route taken, road surfaces, petrol prices and accommodation which reveals the true scale of the journey.
Read more about this extraordinary journey from Cameron Gilg's diary

Stirling Gillespie

James Stirling Gillespie (1908 - 1993) was a Scottish artist, journalist, photographer and film-maker. After a stint as a journalist, Gillespie met J Blake Dalrymple and joined his film production company. In 1937 they travelled through Africa and Gillespie recorded the expedition in a book 'Celluloid Safari' and with the film 'Land Of The White Rhino' (mostly made in KZN, South Africa) released in 1939.

Celluloid Safari: Filming Big Game From Cape To Cairo by Stirling Gillespie (1939) is an account of the author's 1937-1939 overland expedition from Cape Town to Cairo taking wildlife photographs and making films.

Count Gleichen

Major General Lord Albert Edward Wilfred Gleichen (1863 – 1937) was a British soldier and relative of Queen Victoria. He joined the Grenadier Guards in 1881 and rose through the ranks, eventually becoming a Major General. He served in the Guards Camel Corps in the Sudan campaign in 1884–85 and with the Egyptian army in the Dongala campaign in 1896. In 1899–1900 he served in the Second Boer War in South Africa.

With The Mission To Menelik: 1897 by Count Gleichen (1898) is a memoir of the author's travels while serving with the Grenadier Guards on the Nile in 1884-85 and at Dongola in the Sudan in the 1890's. After the Abyssinians under King Menelik defeated an Italian force, the British government decided to send a trade mission to Abyssinia which proved highly successful. Gleichen accompanied the mission as Intelligence Office. His account of the mission includes details of life in Addis Ababa and aspects of Abyssinian life. Free eBook

With The Camel Corps Up The Nile by Count Gleichen (1888) is the adventurous account of the Camel Corps as part of the relief column under Sir Garnet Wolseley intending to relieve the siege at Khartoum where General Gordon was trapped. Even thought they defeated the Mahdi army at Abu Klea, the relief force was two days too late and the entire garrison had been massacred. Free eBook

Bernard Glemser

Dr Denis Parsons Burkitt (1911 – 1993) was a Northern Irish-born surgeon who made significant advances in health, such as the etiology of a paediatric cancer, now called Burkitt's lymphoma and the merits of dietary fibre. During World War II, Burkitt served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in England and later in Kenya and Somaliland. After the war, Burkitt decided his future lay in medical service in the developing world and he moved to Uganda. He eventually settled in Kampala and remained there until 1964.

The Long Safari: A British Surgeon In Africa Tracks Down And Successfully Combats A Dangerous Form Of Cancer by Bernard Glemser (1971) is the remarkable story of Denis Burkitt, a British surgeon who with two missionary friends set off in an old Ford stationwagon on an 10000 mile safari to visit hospitals between Kampala and Johannesburg. They returned with information that startled the medical world. Dr Burkitt showed that the geographical incidence of the tumours correlated with the same temperature and rainfall zones of malaria and is linked to the presence of a virus in people whose immune system is weakened by chronic malaria. Burkitt's Lymphoma appeared to be the first form of cancer to be 'cracked'.

Ian Glenn

The First Safari: Searching For François Levaillant by Ian Glenn (2018) is the about the author's quest to find François Levaillant’s notebooks and the fate of his collection and to solve puzzles and mysteries of Levaillant’s life and times. François Levaillant (1753 – 1824) was a French author, explorer, naturalist, zoological collector and noted ornithologist. He went to the Cape of Good Hope in 1780, at the age of 27, where he decided to study the African bird and animal life in their natural habitat. Levaillant's eventual fame as collector was based on bringing back the first giraffe skeleton to France. He also sold a collection to the Paris Natural History Museum, which included a Bluebuck specimen and a large number of African birds and insects.

John Goddard

Kayaks Down The Nile by John Goddard (1979) is the tale of adventure when the author, an anthropologist, and two French explorer friends travelled 4145 miles of the Nile river in kayaks. They were nearly drowned, were attacked by bull hippos and wild dogs, almost buried alive in a sandstorm, scorched by the sun, shot at, stoned and ravaged by malaria and dysentery.

Nicholas Gordon

Ivory Knights: Man, Magic And Elephants by Nicholas Gordon (1991) is the story of the slaughter of Africa's elephants. Against a background of crisis and corruption, Nicholas Gordon criss-crossed Tanzania's ivory trail, meeting embattled conservationists, travelled with askaris and most significantly tracked down the ivory poachers, poor and illiterate, living out in the bush.

Murders In The Mist: Who Killed Dian Fossey by Nicholas Gordon (1993) is an investigation into the infamous Dian Fossey murder, for which no one has yet been brought to justice.

V Jane Gordon & Elizabeth Salmon

Kwa Heri by V Jane Gordon & Elizabeth Salmon (1996) is a mother and daughter account about a Turkana warrior hunter and George Adamson, set in Kenya. The authors lived in Kenya in the 1940s and 1950s.

Andrew Goudie

Wheels Across The Desert: Exploration Of The Libyan Desert By Motorcar 1916-1942 by Andrew Goudie (2008) is about the exploration of the Sahara by explorers and travellers using motor cars.

Great Desert Explorers by Andrew Goudie (2017) contains the illustrated biographies of around 60 of the most interesting, intrepid and important explorers of the world's greatest deserts. The author wanted to shine a light on some of the great desert explorers of the last three hundred years and who are now rarely remembered - unlike those who explored the poles, climbed Everest or sought the source of the Nile.

Iain Grahame

Major Iain Grahame (b.1932) served with the King's African Rifles in Uganda for 7 years. In the 1960s he purchased Daws Hall in Suffolk and has devoted over fifty years to the conservation of wildlife, habitat and the planting of trees. He has written numerous books about game birds, water fowl, butterflies and bees.

Jambo Effendi: Seven Years With The King's African Rifles by Iain Grahame (1966) is an account of the author's experiences as an officer in the King's African Rifles in Uganda and Kenya in the 50s, after the Mau Mau emergency and before independence. He describes the local tribes and the animal and bird life of the region.

Amin & Uganda: A Personal Memoir by Iain Grahame (1980) is the author's memoir about his time in Uganda before and during Idi Amin's rule. He was Amin's old regimental commander. The author first encountered Amin in 1953 when he was given the command of a platoon in Uganda and Amin was in another platoon in the same company. At that time Iain Grahame considered Amin to be "a outstanding soldier" and "born leader of men" but after becoming president, Amin descended into paranoia and unleashed his reign of terror.

Scott Gration

Flight Path: Son Of Africa To Warrior-Diplomat by Scott Gration (2016) is the life story of Scott Gration who was the son of missionaries in Congo and Kenya. He joined the US Air Force and spent much of his military career as a fighter pilot. After retiring as a Major General from the US Air Force, the author served as a chief executive officer, the President's Special Envoy to Sudan and the US Ambassador to Kenya.

Frank Gray

Francis James Gray (1880 – 1935) was a British politician and welfare campaigner who, when he lost his seat as an MP, travelled to west Africa in 1925. He became interested in the possibility of exporting British cars there. When he returned to Britain he tried to obtain cars from manufacturers to test them in the African environment. The only company to agree to this was Jowetts of Bradford who stipulated that if he drove the cars successfully from Lagos to Khartoum, on the completion of the journey the cost of the cars would be refunded to him.

My Two African Journeys by Frank Gray (1928) is the tale of the author's 1925 seven-month tour of Nigeria, the Gold Coast and Sierra Leone. He later returned one more time to cross Africa from west to east from Lagos to Massawa, which was then in Italian Eritrea, by way of Khartoum. Two Jowett cars were used in this expedition, the author in one and his companion, Jack Sawyer, in the other.

Nick Greaves

Nick Greaves is an author, photographer and safari guide. In addition to his book about Hwange, he also wrote a series of children's books about traditional African fables about elephants, hippos, lions and other animals of the African bush which are combined with factual information about them and their conservation.

Hwange: Retreat Of The Elephants by Nick Greaves (1996) is about the Zimbabwean National Park and its wildlife. Hwange seems like a big, remote, unspoilt and often inhospitable wilderness to man, but to the elephant, Hwange is home.

J R Gregory

Dr Roland Wilks Burkitt (1872 - 1946) was an Irish doctor who went to British East Africa in 1911. There were no health services and he was for years the only private practitioner in Nairobi. On leaving Ireland, he first went to Assam in India, where it rained a lot "even the fish learnt how to climb trees" and also he could not stand the heat, so he went to Kenya Colony and stayed for 28 years. Such was Dr Burkitt's eccentric reputation for cold water treatment regimes, he became rather an iconic figure of the time in Kenya and features in many books written by the then inhabitants. Elspeth Huxley writes about "Nairobi's best known, best loved and at times, the most dreaded doctor" in her book 'Nine Faces Of Kenya'. Dr Roland Burkitt was the uncle of Dr Denis Burkitt (1911 - 1993) of Burkitt's lymphoma fame.

Under The Sun: A Memoir Of Dr R W Burkitt Of Kenya by J R Gregory (1951). Dr Gregory recounts the life of his dedicated but eccentric friend and colleague 'Kill or Cure Burkitt' who was at one time the only doctor in Nairobi. His treatments or 'cures' were considered so uncomfortable that many people preferred to carry on unwell rather than call him in. It includes a chapter on a month long safari..."The safari proved a great success: I got three lions, a buffalo and many antelope". He also mentions a later camera safari with Sidney Downey.

Zane Grey

Pearl Zane Grey (1872 - 1939) was an American dentist and author best known for his popular adventure novels and stories of the American frontier.

The Last Of The Plainsmen by Zane Grey (1908) is a biography of Charles Jesse 'Buffalo' Jones, frontiersman, Indian fighter and hunter. It includes his adventures and escapades in Africa included the roping of African wild animals. Free eBook

John Gunther

John Gunther (1901 - 1970) was an American journalist and author who is best known for his series of popular sociopolitical "Inside" books.

Inside Africa by John Gunther (1955) is a country-by-country account of Africia in the 1950's when Africa was still under colonial rule. Contains explicit detail obtained while travelling the continent during the 1920s to 1950s. Starting in French Morocco and continuing through every part of the continent, the reader will make astonishing discoveries - for instance, where the uranium came from that went into the first atomic bombs, the tyranny of the veil in Arab countries, the great market of Marrakesh and many more.

All other John Gunther books

Emily Hahn

Emily Hahn (1905 - 1997) was an American mining engineer, journalist and prolific author of books and articles. After living in Florence and London in the mid-1920s, she travelled to the Belgian Congo where she worked in a hospital for the Red Cross and lived with a pygmy tribe in the Ituri Forest for two years. She then hiked across Central Africa in the 1930s. Later she spent 9 years living in Shanghai, teaching English. Read more about her extraordinary life here.

Congo Solo: Misadventures Two Degrees North by Emily Hahn (1933) is a very scarce and early book by a woman adventurer/hunter. After living in Florence and London in the mid-1920s, she traveled to the Belgian Congo and hiked across Central Africa in the 1930s. The book includes some hunting. Her book 'With Naked Foot' is the fictional account of her time in Africa.

Africa To Me: Person To Person by Emily Hahn (1964) brings together her experiences in Africa based on from numerous trips between the 1930s and the 1960s, to produce a book full of the flavour of Africa. The bulk of the book concerns the Africanization of the former British dependencies in Nigeria, Kenya, Tanganyika, the Rhodesias, Nyasaland, South Africa and Zanzibar.

Dr Jerry Haigh

Wrestling With Rhinos: The Adventures Of A Glasgow Vet In Kenya by Dr Jerry Haigh (2002) is the account of a newly qualified vet working in post-independence Kenya of 1965. During his 10 years there, he dealt with a lame giraffe, rhinos, elephants, wildebeest, lemurs and pelicans as well as domestic animal patients, among which was Joy Adamson’s cheetah.

Clifford Hallé

Clifford Hallé was a friend and shared a house with Bede John Francis Bentley. As they were both were in bad health and not capable of more than chatting in the evenings, Hallé was able to extract the whole story of Bentley's journey to Abyssinia and write it down.

Bede John Francis Bentley (1878 - 1939) was a British motor transport enthusiast who claimed to have invented the military tank on Kitchener's instructions and latterly, sifter caps for powder containers. He also served with Royal Army Service Corps from 1914 to 1922. He was promised by Kitchener that his interests as an inventor of the tank would be safeguarded but his claim against the Crown of £300,000 for the invention of the tank was dismissed in the High Court in 1925. Bede J F Bentley was not related in any way to Walter Owen Bentley, the founder of Bentley Motors Limited.

To Menelek In A Motor Car by Clifford Hallé (1913) is a record of Bede J F Bentley's epic journey in a Wolseley-Siddeley to Abyssinia. In 1908 he was the first person to take a motor car to Abyssinia, driving it over difficult country from Djibouti to Addis Ababa in 10 months. Bentley travelled with his friend and mechanic, Reginald G Wells, and his dog, Bully. He taught the Emperor Menelek to drive and afterwards presented him with the car. There is some hunting of leopard and kudu. Free eBook

John Hanks

Operation Lock And The War On Rhino Poaching by John Hanks (2015) tells the true story of Operation Lock from 25 years ago. Operation Lock was a covert operation in southern Africa aimed at stamping out the illegal trade in rhino horn. It was the brainchild of Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, the first president of the World Wide Fund for Nature and the author who was a WWF projects manager. They found a private company formed by David Stirling (founder of the SAS) and staffed by former SAS operatives, willing to track down and expose the rhino horn smugglers. They worked undercover from 1989 to the mid 1990s in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia and other southern African countries. It was found that the South African Defence Force was involved in the large-scale destruction of wildlife and smuggling in Angola and Namibia for more than a decade. The book also deals with the scourge of rhino poaching in more recent years, and it gives powerful and controversial criticism of some of the current policies to curb poaching.

Gerald Hanley

Gerald Hanley (1916 – 1992) was an Irish novelist and travel writer. In 1934 he went to East Africa, where he worked on a farm in Kenya until the war in 1939. Joining the King's African Rifles of the British army on the outbreak of the Second World War, Hanley served in Somalia and in Burma.

Warriors And Strangers by Gerald Hanley (1971) is the story of the author's early experiences in East Africa, where he first went as a young man to work on a farm in Kenya and afterwards, in the army, when he patrolled in the isolated Northern Frontier District and what was then Abyssinia and Italian East Africa.

Ronald Hardy

The Iron Snake: The Story Of The Uganda Railway by Ronald Hardy (1965). "The two iron streaks of rail that wind away among the hills and foliage of Mombasa Island do not break their smooth monotony until, after piercing Equatorial forests, stretching across immense prairies, and climbing almost to the level of the European snow-line, they pause upon the edges of the Great Lake." Winston Churchill from 'My African Journey'

William Hale Harkness

William Hale Harkness (1900 – 1954) was an American financier, philanthropist, lawyer and heir to the Standard Oil Company.

Hold That Lion by William Hale Harkness (1953) is a scarce, privately published collection of letters written to the author's daughter about his safari to Egypt, Kenya & Tanganyika in 1952. Includes photos of wildlife, the Sphinx, Masai warriors and others. No hunting.

Ray Harm

Ray Harm (1926 – 2015) was an American artist, best known for his paintings of wildlife.

Ray Harm's African Sketchbook by Ray Harm (1973) was created during the artist's safari in East Africa 1972-1973.

Geoffrey Harmsworth

Sir Arthur Geoffrey Annesley Harmsworth, 3rd Baronet (1904 – 1980) usually went by his middle name of Geoffrey. He was a war correspondent between 1939 and 1940.1 He became a director of the Daily Mail newspaper and chairman of Harmsworth Press.

Abyssinian Adventure by Geoffrey Harmsworth (1935) is a light-hearted, witty and sympathetic account of the people and places he saw in Abyssinia and the Italian colonies between the two world wars.

C C Harris

Africa Has Me Hooked by C C Harris (1970) is a privately published 54 page pamphlet on missionaries going back to Africa. It was written by the missionary, Charity Harris and has four pages of family photos, mostly involving trophy animals. The Harris family began their overseas missionary work in the 1950s in Tanganyika, later in Nyasaland, South Africa and Niger.

Jean Hartley

Africa's Big Five And Other Wildlife Filmmakers: A Centenary of Wildlife Filming In Kenya by Jean Hartley (2010) traces the roots of wildlife film back a hundred years, drawing on accounts of the original film makers and the professional hunters who guided those early safaris. She tracks the changes from those grainy, speeded up, silent films through to the technologically perfect High Definition and 3D films that are being made today.

Paul Hartlmaier

Paul Adam Ludwig Hartlmaier (1893 - 1967) was a German writer, photographer and film-maker who undertook expeditions to India and Africa.

Golden Lion: An Expedition To Abyssinia by Paul Hartlmaier (1956). After landing in Massaua on the Red Sea in Eritrea, the 10 man journey began - covering 8000 km in 5 months. They travelled along the Sudanese border, then into the Abyssinian highlands, with a detour to the source of the Blue Nile at Lake Tana. Then it was on to Addis Ababa and via Harar to Mogadishu. The purpose of the trip was primarily the exploration of Abyssinia (now, Ethiopia), its people, its landscapes, its fauna and flora, as well as its geology. Secondarily, it was also an advertisement for the durability and resilience of the 5 BMW motor vehicles that were used.

Christopher Harwich

Christopher Harwich (b.1909) was a British police officer, originally with the Palestine police force. He remained there until his transfer to Uganda and a commissioned rank. In Uganda he commanded various police districts, mostly in the bush, where he had ample opportunity to learn about the lives and culture of local Africans.

Just before World War II, he was appointed Assistant Director of Security and Intelligence, later commanding the police in Entebbe. For two years he was also Aide de Camp to the Governor, Sir Charles Dundas. In 1948 he was seconded to the Gold Coast Police for special duty in connection with the Gold Coast disturbances at that time. The following year he returned to Uganda where he remained until 1955.

Red Dust: Memories Of The Uganda Police 1935 - 1955 by Christopher Harwich (1961) is the memoir of a colonial officer who carried out his duties in Uganda for 20 years. There are vivid tales of leopards and crocodiles, incidents with hyena-men, warrior ants and the 'walking dead'. There are also the author's thoughts about the effects of civilisation on tribal society and about the shortcomings of law as applied to people to whom very little of it made any sense.

A C G Hastings

Archibald Charles Gardiner Hastings (1878 - 1937) served as a British administrator in northern Nigeria for 18 years, from 1906 to 1924.

Nigerian Days by A C G Hastings (1925) is an account of his 18 years as a colonial officer in Nigeria.

The Voyage Of The Dayspring: Being The Journal Of The Late Sir John Hawley-Glover by A C G Hastings (1926) is an account based on the journal kept by Hawley-Glover, when he was a young Lieutenant with the Baikie Expedition in 1857. The aim of the expedition was to establish trading posts and to encourage missionary endeavours as well as to chart and navigate the Niger and its tributaries, establish anti-slavery treaties and promote British interests. The 'Dayspring' was a steamship used to explore the Niger and she was wrecked on rocks near Boussa, stranding the expedition.

Sir John Hawley Glover GCMG (1829 – 1885) was a Royal Navy officer who served as Governor of Lagos Colony for the best part of 14 years. He took part in the expedition of Dr William Balfour Baikie (1825 - 1864) up the Niger river. Baikie, a medical doctor, only assumed the expedition roles of surgeon, naturalist, ship’s captain and director of the mission when the original head the expedition died prior to the voyage, the original expedition surgeon was transferred to the Crimean War and a few days into the voyage it became clear that the captain of the ship was inept.

John Heminway

No Man's Land: The Last Of White Africa by John Heminway (1983) is the story of expatriates who are Africa's adventurers, eccentrics, outcasts, dreamers, white hunters and gentlemen farmers of Happy Valley. With the likes of Richard Leakey, Gavin Lamont a prospector for DeBeers, Terry Mathews the white hunter, Alan Moorehead and his affection for gorillas and a host of other outcasts and dreamers.

R O Hennings

Richard Owen Hennings went to Kenya in 1935 as a cadet District Officer and rose to be Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture in Kenya.

African Morning by R O Hennings (1951) is the story of his experiences as a District Officer in the Lake Baringo region, a little-known corner of Kenya some two hundred miles from Nairobi.

Shelagh Hill

Early Memories Of Settlers In Machakos, Kenya edited by Shelagh Hill (2005) is a collection of memories of the early days of Kenya from 1906 to 1939. It include accounts and photographs about ostrich farming, hunting, the Kamba people and their bee-keeping with a brief history of Machakos.

Christopher Lawrence Hiscox

The Dawn Stand-To: The Life Of IVB (Peter) Mills QPM, CPM by Christopher Lawrence Hiscox (2000) is the story of Ivor Vernon Barfoot 'Peter' Mills (1918 - 2002), son of a Norfolk doctor, who went in search of adventure. He sailed for Kenya, then sparsely populated and teeming with game. He set out to hunt and explore but funds ran out and he had to find an income to avoid repatriation. In a remote police station he spoke to the Inspector in charge. An hour later, he had joined the Kenya Police. Among his many hair-raising and amusing exploits were gun battles with tribesmen, cattle rustlers and criminals, encounters with dangerous animals and eccentric settlers. Eventually, as a high-ranking officer he played a crucial role in the war against the Mau Mau. The title of the book refers to the World War I military order, when at the hour before dawn every morning, each company was given the stand-to order - to assume positions to resist a possible attack. Presumably this order was used by the Kenya Police at that time.

Adam Hochschild

King Leopolds Ghost: A Story Of Greed, Terror And Heroism In Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild (1999). In the 1880s, as the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium seized for himself the vast and mostly unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River. Carrying out a genocidal plundering of the Congo, he looted it's rubber, brutalized its people and ultimately slashed its population by ten million - all the while shrewdly cultivating his reputation as a great humanitarian.

Sir Alfred Claud Hollis

Sir Alfred Claud Hollis (1874 - 1961) was a British administrator who served as British Resident to the Sultan of Zanzibar between 1923 and 1929.

The Masai: Their Language And Folklore by Sir Alfred Claud Hollis (1905) "Mr Hollis' previous contributions to anthropology, his opportunities for studying the daily conversing with the Masai, and his linguistic talents, which are well known to every one in East Africa, are a sufficient guarantee for the thoroughness and excellence of his work." Free eBook

Masai Myths, Tales And Riddles by Sir Alfred Claud Hollis (2003) is a new version of 'The Masai: Their Language And Folklore'. The Masai language samples have been omitted, the English has been Americanized, the proverbs have been re-worked 'to make them understandable' and one passage the author wrote in Latin has translated into English.

The Nandi: Their Language And Folklore by Sir Alfred Claud Hollis (1909) is a most comprehensive and pioneering study of the Nandi Tribe of East Africa detailing their way of life, their unique language, customs and folk tales. Free eBook

F Ratcliffe Holmes

Frederick William Ratcliffe Holmes (1878 - 1952) was a British naturalist, film-producer and author. In 1921, Ratcliffe-Holmes led an expedition to Africa to film life in the remote outposts of the then British Empire. He was accompanied by a cinematographer, George A Plowman, and the experienced African traveller, linguist and safari manager, Captain Claude Lestock Reid. An interesting souvenir programme was produced when the film 'In Wildest Africa' was released.

Through Wildest Africa: A Story of Travel by F Ratcliffe Holmes (1925) is an account of the author's photographic safari through Uganda, Kenya, and Tanganyika. It describes his travel experiences and his attempts to get within camera range of wild game. There are also hunting episodes for wildebeest, buffalo and rhinoceros near Lake Natron.

Interviewing Wild Animals: An Account Of Travel And Adventure Incidental To The Pursuit Of African Fauna With A Cine-Camera by F Ratcliffe Holmes (1929) is an account of the author's experiences trying to film the animals of Africa.

The Secret People: Adventure In Africa by F Ratcliffe Holmes (1928) is a novel about a lost ancient Egyptian civilisation in darkest Africa where a couple of friends to Africa to search for one of their fathers who disappeared while looking for the Secret People. The blurb on the book by the author reads ... "many of the events and most of the characters in the book are real," and that the author "has explored Africa from the 'gold coast' to the heart of the central and eastern sections of the country."

Joseph Hone

Africa Of The Heart: A Personal Journey by Joseph Hone (1986).The author had always dreamed of crossing the African continent from coast to coast. As travel correspondent for the BBC, he finally embarked on this long-awaited journey through a world of limitless adventure.

Hilary Hook

Lieutenant-Colonel Hilary Hook (1917 - 1990) served as a British army soldier in India and later in Africa.

Home From The Hill: The Autobiography Of A Hunter In The Last Days Of The Empire by Hilary Hook (1987) is the life story of an army officer through World War II, afterwards in the Camel Corps in Sudan and then his own safari company in Kenya. In 1984 he was forced to leave his beloved home near Mount Kenya and became the subject of a BBC2 programme as he tried to come to terms with life in Britain.

Esther E Hopcraft

Esther Eliza Hopcraft (b.1907), born Esther Nash, sailed to Kenya in 1930 to become the wife of John Norman 'Jack' Hopcraft (1906 - 1978) who was a member of a large early Kenyan settler family.

Esther's Story by Esther E Hopcraft (1996) is the story of the author's life which began in Devon, England and continued as the wife of a farmer and honorary game warden in Kenya.

Edward Coode Hore

Edward Coode Hore (1848 - 1912) was a British-born master mariner, missionary, explorer and cartographer. He was appointed to the Lake Tanganyika Mission and arrived in Zanzibar in 1877 and set out for the Lake Tanganyika, arriving there in 1878. In 1880, he explored the southern part of the lake before returning to England in 1881 where he passed his master mariner examinations. He returned to Central Africa, with his wife and son, in 1883 as captain first of the 'Morning Star', a 32-foot lifeboat, and later the 'Good News', a two-masted screw steamer which was dragged overland in pieces for reassembly on Lake Tanganyika. He conducted his missionary work with the boats on Lake Tanganyika and also collected a vast number of mollusc species from the lake.

Ill health forced his return to England from Africa in 1888 before travelling to Australia and eventually settling in Tasmania until his death in 1912.

Edward Coode Hore's wife, Annie B Hore (born Annie Boyle Gribbon) wrote an extremely scare book 'To Lake Tanganyika In A Bath Chair' (1886) about her life in Tanganyika and the extraordinary journey she undertook to get there with her small son.

Tanganyika: Eleven Years In Central Africa by Edward Coode Hore (1892) is an account of his life as a missionary and master mariner around Lake Tanganyika. Free eBook

G A Hoskins

George Alexander Hoskins (1802 - 1863) was a British lawyer, traveller and artist. In the 1830s he traveled to Egypt, Nubia and Ethiopia. He worked on several archaelogical sites but like many of his contemporary travellers in Egypt and Sudan, he was not an Egyptologist or archaelogist.

Travels In Ethiopia: Above The Second Cataract Of The Nile by G A Hoskins (1835) contains observations by the author during his 1833 journey into the higher parts of Ethiopia including the metropolis of the ancient kingdom Meroe, which had been explored by very few Europeans and yet it "abounds with monuments rivalling those of Egypt in grandeur and beauty." Free eBook

A Winter In Upper And Lower Egypt by G A Hoskins (1863) is the account of Hoskins' second trip to Egypt which was made for health reasons. His narrative includes commentary on Cairo, bazaars, mosques, convents, Suez, the pyramids, Memphis, ancient ruins and temples, sculpture and architecture, a voyage up the Nile and Egyptian mythology. Free eBook

Visit To The Great Oasis Of The Libyan Desert by G A Hoskins (1837) is an account of his journey to the Great Oasis to the west of Thebes and other oases in the Libyan Desert. Hoskins was living in Luxor in 1836 and travelled to the Libyan oases with Robert Hay and Frederick Catherwood. Free eBook

Dick Houston

Safari Adventure by Dick Houston (1991) describes the author's photographic safari in Kenya and Tanzania, highlighting the native tribes, animals, and local scenery. It included a climb up Mount Kilimanjaro, setting up campsites and being surrounded by herds of wild animals!

Bulu: African Wonder Dog by Dick Houston (2010) is the true tale of a dog called Bulu, who helped his owners foster orphaned baby animals, including warthogs, monkeys, elephants, baboons, bushbucks and buffalo. For younger readers.

E Howard-Williams

'H W' or Ernest Leslie Howard-Williams (1895 - 1969) served in the British Army during the First World War during which he was awarded the Military Cross before joining the Royal Flying Corps (later the RAF). He became Commander of 47 Sqn, a transport squadron in Sudan. In 1930 he led a flight of Fairey IIID aircraft from Khartoum to West Africa and back, which took about a week. He attained the rank of Air Commodore in 1941. Howard-Williams later emigrated to Kenya and entered politics, ending up as the leader of the opposition in the Kenyan Government. He retired back to UK in the 1960’s where he died in 1969.

Something New Out Of Africa by 'HW' (1934) is an account of the author's adventurous three years service with the RAF in the Sudan during the 1930s. Part of his responsibilites was to find a route for a planned commercial Cairo-to-the-Cape air service. H W was to see Africa from the air and on the ground, not only from north to south but also the vast areas lying to the East and West with territories visited including Kenya, Abyssinia, Egypt, the French colonies of Equatorial Africa and West Africa, the Belgian Congo and other British Colonies throughout the continent. His flights involved meeting prominant people like Britain's Prince of Wales and the King of Belgium, also with many African notables, expats and natives. The author 'H W' shows reluctance to acknowledge ownership, even to the extent of not being identified in photographs. His identity as E Howard-Williams was established after the publication of the book. There are four fold-out maps showing the Cairo to Cape Air Route, Port Sudan to Fort Bathurst Air Route, The Red Sea Air Route and The Air Routes in Africa.

George Hoyningen-Huene

Baron George Hoyningen-Huene (1900 – 1968) was a Russian born fashion photographer of the 1920s and 1930s. He had German and American parents and spent his working life in France, England and the United States.

African Mirage by George Hoyningen-Huene (1938) recounts the author-photographer's journey throughout Africa, ranging through Egypt, the Sudan, Kenya, the Belgian Congo, French Equatorial Africa, British Nigeria and back by the Southern Sahara, during which he primarily photograhed the lives of the indigenous people.

Lincoln Hughes

Zimbabwe by Lincoln Hughes (2005) is an adventure novel of big game hunting in Africa set against the background of African revolutionary activity.

Seth K Humphrey

Seth King Humphrey (1864 - 1932) was an American writer and traveller, who also invented the 'Humphrey Employees Elevator' in 1886 while working in a South Dakota flourmill.

Loafing Through Africa by Seth K Humphrey (1929) is an account of the author's travels in southern and central Africa.

Julian Huxley

Sir Julian Sorell Huxley (1887 - 1975) was an English evolutionary biologist, brother of Aldous Huxley and cousin of Gervas Huxley, who was the husband of Elspeth Huxley. In 1929 Huxley visited East Africa to advise the Colonial Office on education in British East Africa. He discovered that the wildlife on the Serengeti plain was almost undisturbed because the tsetse fly (the vector for the trypanosome parasite which causes sleeping sickness in humans) prevented human settlement there. In the 1930s Huxley visited Kenya and other East African countries to see the conservation work, including the creation of national parks, which was happening in the few areas that remained uninhabited due to malaria.

Africa View by Julian Huxley (1931) is a tale of a trip around east Africa. The journey took in conservation work and the formation of the first national parks, and the book contains commentary on malaria, the effects of tsetse flies, racial politics, tribal culture and early man, among many other subjects.

Janheinz Jahn

Janheinz Jahn (1918 - 1973) was a German writer and scholar of literature from sub-Saharan Africa.

Through African Doors: Experiences And Encounters In West Africa by Janheinz Jahn (1962) is an an account of the author's experience of the culture of Nigeria and Togo, as he ate, slept and travelled as the local Africans do themselves. Free eBook

Andrew C A Jampoler

Congo: The Miserable Expeditions And Dreadful Death of Lt. Emory Taunt, USN by Andrew C A Jampoler (2013) is an account of a young American naval officer on a mission up the Congo river in 1885. Lt Emory Taunt was to become the first American resident commercial agent and Consul in the Congo and was ordered to explore as much of the river as possible and report on opportunities for American trade in the area. Just over five years later, Taunt was dead and buried near the place he had first came ashore. His 'personal demons' and fever were said to have killed him. In 2011, the author retraced Taunt's expedition in an motorboat to examine Taunt's assignments which included a commercial venture to collect elephant ivory in the river basin and an appointment as the US State Department's first resident diplomat in Boma, capital of King Leopold II's Congo Free State. However, instead of becoming rich and famous, Taunt died alone, bankrupt and disgraced.

Willem Jaspert

Willem Jaspert (1901 - 1941) was a German publisher and writer.

Through Unknown Africa: Experiences From The Jaspert African Expedition Of 1926-1927 by Willem Jaspert (1929) is the record of the author's journey through Angola with his brother, Fritz, his wife and child. It was a hazardous journey with many hardships and it is not clear why they undertook it. They had to find work wherever they could, they were ill with malaria and twice pursued by Portuguese officials as spies. This required them to head for the interior rather than stay on the beaten tracks.

John Mark Jay

Any Old Lion: The Hilarious Story Of The Filming Of 'Born Free' In Africa by John Mark Jay (1966) is the story of the making of the movie 'Born Free' in 1966 starring Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers as Joy and George Adamson who raised Elsa the lioness and released her into the wilderness of Kenya.

Bertram F Jearey

Pride Of Lions: With 68 Photographs By The Author by Bertram F Jearey (1936) is an account of the author's years spent photographing African big game at close quarters in the then Kruger National Reserve and in the region of Addo. This scarce book is frequently confused by booksellers with another book called 'Pride Of Lions' by Brian C R Bertram which was published in 1978.

Montague George Jessett

The Key To South Africa: Delagoa Bay by Montague George Jessett (1899) makes the case that southeast African port of Delagoa Bay, which Great Britain was considering acquiring at the time, was of strategic importance for the Empire. Jessett sets out to give an account of its history, trade, inhabitants, flora and fauna, its harbour, the town of Lourenco Marques which lies on the bay and the Delagoa Bay railway. Free eBook

David K Jones

Shepherds Of The Desert: Nomads Of Kenya by David K Jones (1984) is a visually stunning book which takes you deep into the lives of the nomadic peoples of northern Kenya.

Faces Of Kenya by David K Jones (1977) is superb volume of photographs capturing the whole spectrum of Kenya's natural attractions, from deserts to the lakes and mountains to the animals and most of all, the people.

Schuyler Jones

Dr Schuyler Jones (b.1930) was born in Kansas but spent most of his life exploring Africa and Asia, ending up teaching Anthropology at Oxford University as well as being the Director of the Pitt Rivers Museum there. He took part in anthropological expeditions in the early 1950s to North Africa, the Sahara, West Africa, French Equatorial Africa, Belgian Congo, East Africa, South Africa, the Zambezi and Congo rivers and French West Africa.

Under The African Sun by Schuyler Jones (1956) is a collection of stories from the author's time spent in Africa as a whole, covering the forest, desert and mountain regions of Africa.

Émile Jonveaux

Émile Jonveaux (1819 - 1871) was a known as French 'traveller', author and translator. It has since been discovered that Jonveaux was an 'armchair traveller' and did not in fact spend 2 years having adventures in Abyssinia and Nubia. From an article by H B Thomas OBE in the Uganda Journal 1946, Volume 10 Page 152, it was discovered that the original French language edition of 'Two Years In East Africa', Jonveaux had written in the preface..."Je ne les ai vus, que par le pensee: mais une longue etude m'a identifie avec eux". which translates to, "I only saw them by thought, but a long study identified me with them". This disclaimer was omitted by the publishers of the English edition.

It transpired that for his 'journey', Jonveaux used Samuel Baker's 'The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia' for the section on Eygpt to Abyssinia, French explorer Guillaume Lejean work was used for the Abyssinian section and he reversed Baker's journey fron Khartom to Bunyoro in 'Albert Nyanza'. Speke's 'Journal of the Discovery Of The Source Of The Nile' also contributed to Jonveaux's 'adventures' in Buganda and Karagwe. The illustrations in the book were cunningly adapted from the illustrations in the books by Speke and Baker.

Two Years In East Africa: Adventures In Abyssinia and Nubia, With A Journey To The Sources Of The Nile by Émile Jonveaux (1875) is an interesting literary hoax seemingly perpetrated by the English version publishers rather than the author himself. Free eBook

Werner Junge

Dr Werner Junge was a German doctor who went to Liberia in 1930 to establish a jungle mission hospital at Bolahun where he spent two years. He was then transferred and continued working in a hospital on the coast until 1940. As part of his job, Dr Junge had to deal with six cases of ritual murders or attempted murder attributed to both the 'Crocodile Society' and the 'Leopard Society'. These were West African secret societies of 'witch-doctor' people who were believed to be possessed by the spirits of animals such as leopards and crocodiles, and who carried out ritual killings during the early to mid 1900s.

African Jungle Doctor: Ten Years In Liberia by Werner Junge (1952) is the story of a doctor who established a mission hospital in the heart of the Liberian jungle. As the lone doctor, he established a leper colony, innoculated over 18000 natives for smallpox and operated under very primitive conditions. UK published version of 'Bolahun: An African Adventure'

Bolahun: An African Adventure by Werner Junge (1952) is the US published version of 'African Jungle Doctor: Ten Years In Liberia'.

H T Kenny

In Lightest Africa by H T Kenny (1935) is a travelogue of the years an English couple lived in Algiers. They hunted with falcons, visited oases, survived sand storms and much more.

Geoffrey Kent

Safari by Geoffrey Kent (2016) is the tale of author's life - arriving in Kenya with nothing but an old Land Rover and launching a safari business in 1962 with his parents in Nairobi. Today he is the chairman and CEO of Abercrombie & Kent, an international luxury travel company.

Paul Kenyon

Dictatorland: The Men Who Stole Africa by Paul Kenyon (2018) are the stories of violence and excess of various African dictators after their countries gained independence. It also exposes the secrets of Western greed and complicity, the insatiable taste for chocolate, oil, diamonds and gold that have encouraged dictators to rule with an iron hand.

James Kilgo

James Patrick Kilgo (1941 - 2002) was an American author and lecturer at the University of Georgia. He was best known for his essays and novels that feature his personal experiences of the natural world, family stories, tales of hunting and friendship.

Colors Of Africa by James Kilgo (2017) is an account of the author's only trip to Africa, ostensibly to do a big game hunt in the Luangwa Valley. However, the book is mostly about his musings about the beauty of the bush - "its voices, scents, textures, and, most meaningfully, colors". He also compares what he sees in Africa against the books he had read by David Livingstone, Ernest Hemingway and Isak Dinesen. The book was published posthumously.

Clyde N King

Clyde Nelson King (1876 - 1969) was the vice chairman of International Harvester Export Company. He sponsored and was part of the expedition to cross Africa and the truck was dubbed 'the truck that crossed the Sahara'. His son Weldon King (1911 - 2005) was the official photographer on many African expeditions led by Attilio Gatti including Gatti-Hallicrafters Expedition in 1947-1948 and 12th, 13th and 14th Gatti expeditions in the 1950s.

African Adventures Of An American Truck by Clyde King (1929) is an account of a trip by International Harvester Special Delivery truck from Nairobi Kenya, east through the Congo to Nigeria and then across the Sahara to Algiers. Bror Blixen accompanied the expedition.

Marina King

Sunrise To Evening Star: My Seventy Years In South Africa by Marina King (1935). Adventurous early pioneer days in South Africa. The story ends with an overland journey from the Cape to Mombasa in a six-seater saloon car carried out at the age of 74 in 1930. They don't make them like that any more!

Harry Klein

Land Of Silver Mist by Harry Klein (1951) is an account of the author's journey in southern Africa. Leaving a dull office job, he travelled through Natal and Pondoland with an old Irish renegade as a companion, then on foot and horseback through Northern Transvaal. He tells many previously unrecorded stories of the past in South Africa.

Horst Klemm

An African Journal by Horst Klemm (1994) is a personal account of 20 years of journeys in Africa by one of the finest wildlife photographers. This book is full of outstanding photographs of the Zambezi river, the Okavango and Namib desert. Horst Klemm's photography also appears in 'Elephants For Africa' by Randall Jay Moore

Daniel Korn

Cannibal: The History Of The People Eaters by Daniel Korn (2001) examines evidence ranging from protein analysis to studies of human bones that suggests that people-eating is a pervasive human signiature, running through our species since the dawn of time.

George Frederick Kunz

George Frederick Kunz (1856 – 1932) was an American mineralogist and mineral collector whose expertise in gemstones lead to him becoming the vice president of Tiffany & Co at the age of 23. He later became a special agent for the US Geological Survey, a research curator at the Museum of Natural History in New York and the leading advocate in the establishment of the international carat as a unit of measure for precious gems.

George Kunz also became interested in the art of ivory carving and wrote a book about the sources of ivory and it's physical characteristics. In doing so, he acknowledges the arduous and dangerous task of the elephant hunters who supplied 'the beautiful pearl of the forest'.

Ivory And The Elephant In Art, In Archaeology And In Science by George Frederick Kunz (1916) is the author's classic study of the procuring and working of ivory, from the ancient period to modern times. It includes chapters on the evolution and development of the elephant, elephant hunting and the art and commerce of ivory carving. There is much on the tuskers hunted by the sportsmen and travellers of the time. Free eBook

Archive Of Correspondence Concerning Elephant Hunting And Trophy Ivory Hunted In Africa is addressed to George Frederick Kunz (1915). In response to a request for information about hunting elephant in Africa sent by Kunz to elephant hunters as research for his book 'Ivory And The Elephant In Art, In Archaeology And In Science', this archive contains letters from several elephant hunters from 1899 to 1913, including...

• James Barnes wrote a two-page, typed letter, signed, describing several hunts in Uganda and British East Africa in 1913-14.
• William Fitz Hugh Whitehouse (who was on the same expedition as Powell-Cotton in Abyssinia) wrote a four-page letter recording 12 elephant kills on expeditions to Lake Rudolph in 1899-1900 and 1902-3.
• Gerrit Forbes (an American hunter who did a motor safari across Africa with W D M Bell) wrote about 48 elephants taken between 1907-1913 in British East Africa, Uganda, Congo & Sudan.
• William Sewall, wrote about hunts in Rhodesia, German East Africa, Uganda, Somaliland, Abyssinia from 1905 onwards.
• W S Rainsford described three elephant kills during travels in east Africa 1905, 1908-9 and 1911-12.
• E J Honor wrote giving brief details of one kill from a hunt north and west of Mount Kenya, 1905-6.
• E M Wheeler writing on behalf of Alexander Wheeler, described a trophy taken at Mohoroni, British East Africa, 1903.
• James L Clark, taxidermist and sculptor, wrote about one elephant kill in British East Africa, 1909-1910 with the McCutcheon/Roosevelt expedition.
• Several correspondents reported not having successfully hunted elephant, such as H Lloyd Folsom (on the same safari as Alonzo Barton Hepburn) who wrote that the illness of a travelling companion obliged his party to give up the idea.
• Percy C Madeira of Philadelphia, author of 'Hunting In British East Africa' wrote that he saw only fresh tracks.
• T Alexander Barns, author of 'Across The Great Craterland To The Congo' wrote trying to interest Kunz in a shipment of Congolese ivory carvings.

Christina Lamb

Christina Lamb is a leading British foreign correspondent and author.

Lieutenant Colonel Sir Stewart Gore-Browne (1883 - 1967) was a British soldier, pioneer white settler, politician and supporter of independence in Northern Rhodesia.

The Africa House: The True Story Of An English Gentleman And His African Dream by Christina Lamb (1999) is the true story of Stewart Gore-Browne and the magnificent house he built at Shiwa Ngandu (the Lake of the Royal Crocodiles) in Northern Rhodesia. Stewart Gore Browne built himself a sprawling country estate modeled on the finest homes in England, complete with uniformed servants, daily muster parades, rose gardens and lavish dinners finished off with vintage port in the library. He wanted to share it with the love of his life, the unconventional Ethel Locke King, one of the first women to drive and to fly. However, she was nearly twenty years his senior, married and his aunt.

Cherry Lander

My Kenya Acres: A Woman Farms In Mau Mau Country by Cherry Lander (1957) is the memoir of settler in the Rift Valley of Kenya. As a lone widow she lived through the Mau Mau Emergency years when she took meticulous precautions... She gave up listening to the radio in the evening so that she could concentrate on sounds outside. She placed sheet metal over her windows and double locks on her doors and each evening she varied her routine and was careful not to silhouette herself against a light. She starts the book with the words..."For the upteenth time I put down my book and listened, my hand on my gun."

Frans Lanting

Into Africa by Frans Lanting (2017) is a book by a photographer which features vistas of the Serengeti, the wilderness of the Okavango Delta, the deserts of Namibia, the jungles of the Congo and the island of Madagascar.

Lucinda De Laroque

Paradise Found: The Story Of The Mount Kenya Safari Club by Lucinda De Laroque (1992) traces the origins and the legend behind this historical luxury hotel, overlooking the majestic Mount Kenya and once owned by the actor, William Holden.

Aaron Latham

The Frozen Leopard: Hunting My Dark Heart In Africa by Aaron Latham (1991) is a book about travelling to a distant land, in this case to East Africa, to find a 'self' never before known apparently, a cure for writer's block and grief about the long-ago death of his only sister. Latham and his family go on a safari to Kenya and to see Diane Fossey's gorillas. He didn't like the gorillas much as he felt suffocated in the dense jungle indergrowth - he preferred the plains of Kenya which reminded him of his home state of Texas.

Gwynneth & Michael Latham

Gwynneth Latham (1899 - 1972) was newly married to Dr Donald Victor Latham (d.1953) when they left Britain in 1925 to join the Tanganyika Medical Service. One of her sons, Michael Latham edited his mother's extensive journal to produce her book.

Kilimanjaro Tales: The Saga Of A Medical Family In Africa by Gwynneth & Michael Latham (1995)is the tale of an English woman who took on the important role of medical assistant to her bush doctor husband, Donald, in Tanganyika in the 1920s and 30s. Includes insights into the connection between traditional medical practice and Western medicine and descriptions of friendships with a wide range of colleagues, staff, locals, settlers and government officials. This is above all, the story of a European family settling in Africa, confronted with new and exciting surroundings and life-changing experiences.

Jonathan Laverick

The Kalahari Killings: The True Story Of A Wartime Double Murder In Botswana, 1943 by Jonathan Laverick (2015) reviews the evidence to uncover the true story of two trainee RAF pilots,flying from Zimbabwe, were forced to land in Botswana in 1943. They climbed out unscathed, left a note, and then disappeared only to be later found dead with axe and bullet wounds. Eight members of the Tyua bush people, led by a witch doctor, were charged and tried for murder. Following the trial the Tyuas' guns were confiscated and their nomadic hunting life began to die out. The author surmises that the murders offered a reason for local cattle farmers to remove them from their lands.

Michael Lawrence-Brown

Feather On The 'Wind Of Change': Safaris, Surgery And Stentgrafts by Michael Lawrence-Brown (2018) is an autobiography which starts with the author's early life in Kenya as the son of renowned professional hunter and outfitter, Stan Lawrence-Brown. He accompanied his father on safari with some of the most famous Hollywood clients such as Stewart Granger, John Wayne and Ava Gardner on their location film shoots. The 'wind of change' uprooted the author who went to Australia and became a world-leading aortic surgeon who developed the internal stent to treat aortic aneurysm.

L S B Leakey

Louis Seymour Bazette Leakey (1903 - 1972) was a Kenyan-born archaeologist, anthropologist who later became the Curator of Coryndon Museum, Kenya. With his wife, Mary Douglas Leakey (1913 – 1996) he discovered several pre-human fossil remains at Olduvai Gorge and Rusinga Island, firmly outlining man's early ancestry. His second son was Richard Leakey who was also a paleoanthropologist but who became known for his wildlife conservation work in Kenya.

White African by L S B Leakey (1937) recounts his life growing up in Kenya outside Nairobi in the years before the First World War. Surrounded by the local Kikuyu people, he spoke Kikuyu fluently himself and considered himself a Kikuyu. A fascinating autobiography and insight into conditions in Kenya in the early part of the twentieth century. An updated edition of this book was published in 1966.

Richard Leakey

Richard Erskine Frere Leakey (b.1944) is a politician, paleoanthropologist and conservationist. He is second of the three sons of the archaeologists Louis Leakey and Mary Leakey.

Wildlife Wars: My Battle To Save Kenya's Elephants by Richard Leakey (2001) is the story of Leakey's battle to save Kenya's wilflife , fighting against corrupt officials and bringing millions of dollars from international donors to help enforce a ban on the ivory trade.

Wildlife Wars: My Fight To Save Africa's Natural Treasures by Richard Leakey with Virginia Morell (2001) are further stories of Leakey's battle to save Kenya's wildlife, especially elephants.

David Lemon

Blood, Sweat And Lions by David Lemon (2008) is the account of the author's 1200km walk through the Zambezi Valley when, as written in the book blurb, he was overweight, unfit, too old for this bush walk.

Hobo: Rows Kariba by David Lemon (2009) is the story of the author's adventures when rowing Lake Kariba in both directions. He was shipwrecked three times in storms, lost most of his food, holed his boat and was forced to operate on himself when bitten by a venomous snake. He also had numerous close encounters with lions, hippopotami, crocodiles and buffalo, yet he claims to have enjoyed himself.

Two Wheels And A Tokoloshe by David Lemon (2008) is another of the author's adventures ... cycling alone from Nairobi to Cape Town. He was arrested twice, beaten up by armed soldiers, smashed his wheel in a fall and went down with amoebic dysentery. A Tokoloshe is a mischievous goblin in African mythology which the author believed was with him as he had so many mishaps on the journey.

Dr Henry Lichtenstein

Dr Henry Martin Heinrich Karl Lichtenstein (1780 - 1857) was a German doctor of medicine who had a great longing to travel, especially in South Africa so offered his services as tutor to the Governor's son. After his travels in 1811, Lichtenstein became Professor of Zoology at Berlin and in 1844 was the founder of the Berlin Zoologischen Garten. Lichtenstein's hartebeest, Alcelaphus lichtensteinii was one of several species named after him.

Travels In Southern Africa, In The Years 1803, 1804, 1805 And 1806 by Dr Henry Lichtenstein (1811). 2 Volumes. These volumes contain accounts of the author's journeys in the Cape Colony, commenting on the landscape, economy and people he encountered. Vol I Free eBook Vol II Free eBook

Donald M Lockhart

The Itinerário Of Jerónimo Lobo translated by Donald M Lockhart (1984). Jerónimo Lobo was the last survivor of a small band of Portuguese Jesuits who tried to reconcile Ethiopia to the Church of Rome. After previously serving in India, he was selected for the Ethiopian mission and he made a remarkable attempt to reach the country from the Somali coast. He eventually made his way to Bailul on the Red Sea and across the Danakil desert. He spent nine years in Ethiopia, mainly in the north near the source of the Blue Nile. He was exiled when the Emperor restored the authority of the Ethiopian Church and handed over to the Turks at Massawa. After suffering much hardship and danger he got back to India but had further incredible adventures including being shipwrecked and marooned on an island.

Nicolas Luard

Nicholas Lamert Luard (1937 - 2004) was a British writer and politician.

The Last Wilderness: A Journey Across The Great Kalahari Desert by Nicholas Luard (1981) is about the author's journey to find a legendary black leopard that inhabited the Great Kalahari Desert and to find out "why we should love or respect the wilderness". Luard was accompanied by his wife, three companions and an old white hunter. They retraced the steps of Livingstone, they camped with the San Bushmen, and found the trail of the nineteenth-century adventurer Farini, who claimed to have discovered King Solomon's mines. The account of his journey is full of mishaps, near-disasters, hazards, meetings with the strange wilderness groupies who wander around the desert, as well as the last of the white hunters.

E K Lumley

Forgotten Mandate: A British District Officer In Tanganyika by Edward Kenneth Lumley (1976) is an interesting account of the author's 23 year service (1923 -1944) as a District Officer and Commissioner in the most remote and undeveloped areas of Tanganyika.