STANLEY, Henry Morton. In Darkest Africa or The Quest, Rescue and Retreat of Emin, Governor of Equatoria. London, Marston, Searle and Rivington Limited, 1890.
Two volumes in six parts (Divisions), royal 8vo. Original brick-red pictorial cloth, upper boards decorated and lettered in black and gilt, spines decorated and lettered in black and gilt; two wood-engraved frontispieces, wood-engraved plates, 3 folding, colour-printed lithographic maps, and numerous wood-engraved illustrations (including maps and plans, a few full-page) in the text; spines a bit darkened, spine of Division Six with small circular hole, large folding map with repairs to folds; otherwise an attractive set of the rare subscriber's edition.
First edition. In Darkest Africa is the celebrated account of Stanley's 1887-1889 expedition to Lake Albert, to relieve the German physician and scientist Eduard Schnitzer (known as Emin Pasha). Following the Mahdist uprising (which had led to the death of Gordon in 1885), Emin Pasha, the governor of Equatorial Sudan, had fled Sudan for Wadelai, close to Lake Albert, where he was trapped. However, he had been able to send letters back to Europe to alert friends to his plight, and these letters had provoked great concern for Emin's safety and an expedition was proposed by William Mackinnon, the Chairman of the British India Steam Navigation Company, which Stanley was asked to lead. In 1887, Stanley arrived at Zanzibar and then travelled around the Cape to the mouth of the Congo, from where he made his way to Leopoldville and thence to along the Congo into the centre of the continent, to the river's confluence with the Aruwimi River. From there Stanley journeyed to the village of Yambuya, which he reached on 15 June 1887, and, leaving a rearguard party at Yambuya, Stanley and an advance party of some 400 embarked upon a 450-mile, five-month-long journey through the Ituri rain forest to Lake Albert. - This edition is rather odd, as all six cloth bindings where intended to be discarded in order to bind the set into two volumes. This edition appeared in larger format than the usually encountered two-volume trade edition. The first leaf in the first division contains under the heading 'This leaf not to be bound with the Volume) the printed note: 'Conditions of Publication. This edition, specially prepared for subscription only, will be completed in Twenty-two parts, at 2s. each, or in Six Divisions, cloth gilt, at 9s. each, and is not obtainable from the ordinary Booksellers'.
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