STANLEY, Sir Henry Morton.

The autobiography of Sir Henry Morton Stanley G.C.B. . . . Edited by his wife Dorothy Stanley with sixteen photogravures and a map.

Boston & New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, The Riverside Press Cambridge, 1909. 8vo (235 x 160 mm), pp. xvii, [i, blank], 551, [1, blank]; original red-brown cloth, gilt; joints cracking and spine a little frayed. First American edition. The first nine chapters of the African explorer’s autobiography were written by Stanley, the rest was completed by his wife, Dorothy, who, after his death ‘emulated Isabel Burton by building up the legend of Bula Matari. All evidence tending to work against the mythical picture she wanted for “her” Stanley was ruthlessly suppressed’ (McLynn, Stanley, Sorcerer’s apprentice p. 389). Stanley, himself, ‘was in every way a masterful story-teller; so traumatic were the memories of his youth that he did everything he could to obscure the truth from public view, fabricating for himself a new identity in the process. His enormous drive won him notoriety as well as fame, though he defended his life’s record to the very last: “I was not sent into this world to be happy, nor to search for happiness. I was sent for a special work” (Autobiography, xvii)’ (Oxford DNB). ‘The existentialist cliché about man constantly recreating his own identity has never seemed so apt as it does in the case of “H. M. Stanley” ’ (McLynn, Stanley, The making of an African explorer p. 31). The Autobiography ‘is largely a work of neurotic fantasy. Yet this has its compensations. While we must look elsewhere for the facts of Stanley’s early life, the Autobiography is an extraordinarily rich seam to work for the inner Stanley and provides vital clues to his unconscious demons’ (ibid. p. 14).

• GBP 200.00 > other currencies
• ordernr.: T2395

• bookseller: Bernard Quaritch Ltd. (GREAT BRITAIN)