Alfred Aloysius Horn Books

Alfred Aloysius 'Trader' Horn (1861 – 1931) was born Alfred Aloysius Smith in Britain. He was an ivory trader in central Africa who related his tales to novelist, Ethelreda Lewis, who wrote the book 'Trader Horn: Being The Life And Works Of Alfred Aloysius Horn' in 1927 detailing his journeys into jungles teeming with buffalo, gorillas, man-eating leopards and serpents. This book also gave rise to the 'Trader Horn' films of 1931 and 1973.

Then many different publishing houses published various editions and volumes of his life story prefaced with..."written at the age of seventy-three with such of the author's philosophy as is the gift of age and experience taken down and here, and edited by Ethelreda Lewis". Horn was in fact aged 67, not 73, when the book was published.

The author, Tim Couzens, delved deeper into the world of Trader Horn... When an elderly itinerant trader from a doss house in Johannesburg turned up on the veranda of Ethelreda Lewis's suburban home, she was so enthralled by his reminiscences that she turned them into a biographical narrative which became the world bestseller for 1927. Popular though the book was, it did not take long before the veracity of Lewis's tale about Trader Horn was being called into question by many who believed the work was fiction, or a hoax.

Trader Horn: Being The Life And Works Of Alfred Aloysius Horn by Alfred Aloysius Horn (1927). Edited by Ethelreda Lewis. It is Alfred Aloysius Horn's autobiography embellished with fiction.

Trader Horn: Harold The Webbed Or The Young Vykings by Alfred Aloysius Horn (1928) is Volume II of 'Trader Horn: Being The Life And Works Of Alfred Aloysius Horn' and can be found for sale with the original 1927 title or as a separate volume. This was Horn's attempt at writing a purely fictional adventure story about a 16 year old Viking lad born with webbed hands and feet, a feature considered to bring good luck.

Trader Horn: The Waters Of Africa by Alfred Aloysius Horn (1929) is Volume III of 'Trader Horn: Being The Life And Works Of Alfred Aloysius Horn'. This is his last book which is mostly fiction embellished with fact.

Other Trader Horn Publications Include:

Trader Horn: A Young Man's Astounding Adventures In 19th Century Equatorial Africa (2002)

Trader Horn: The Ivory Coast In The Earlies (1931) reprint of part of 'Trader Horn: Being The Life And Works Of Alfred Aloysius Horn'

Trader Horn In Madagascar (1932) is a reprint of 'The Waters Of Africa'

Books About Alfred Aloysius Horn:

Tim Couzens

Tramp Royal: The True Story Of Trader Horn by Tim Couzens (1992) picks up the fading trail of Aloysius Smith, alias Trader Horn, from Lancashire in the 1860s, through the frontiers of Africa, Buffalo Bill's America, London in the 1890s, gun-running in Madagascar, the Boer War in South Africa to the doss house in Johannesburg.