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.

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

Dr Norman Parsons Jewell

On Call In Africa: In War And Peace 1910 - 1932 by Dr Norman Parsons Jewell (2016) is the account of events based on the author's personal diary, memoirs and extensive photography. He began his tropical medical career in the Seychelles, but on the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 he was appointed to the East Africa Protectorate and became an army doctor. He travelled with the troops all over Tanganyika including meeting the 25th Royal Fusiliers who were commanded by Colonel Jerry Driscoll and Frederick Courteney Selous. He was posted to Mombasa, Kenya after the war and then returned to England in 1932.

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

Louis D C Joos

Through The Sahara To The Congo by Louis D C Joos (1961) Translated by Isabel and Florence McHugh. This is the account of the author's journey across the Sahara from Algiers to Lake Chad via the Hoggar and Northern Nigeria, by bus and car, and on to the Congo.

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!

Anthony Kirk-Greene

Symbol Of Authority: The British District Officer In Africa by Anthony Kirk-Greene (2005) is a fascinating look at this unique job - the District Officer was the pivot of Britain's Colonial Administration in Africa and throughout the Empire. This book is a look at men who served in this position of such breadth and endless generality, through the eyes of those who undertook to do it.

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.

Wilson MacArthur

David Wilson MacArthur (1903 - 1981) was a Scottish writer who travelled extensively in Africa and elsewhere. He travelled across the Sahara in a car with his wife, served in the Royal Navy during WW2 and settled on a farm in Rhodesia in 1947. He wrote over 40 books - non-fiction about his travels, adventure novels for boys, sometimes under the pseudonym, David Wilson.

The Road To The Nile: A Story Of Travel In The Western Desert And The Army Of The Nile by Wilson MacArthur (1941) is a cheerfully written story of a trip in an un-modified 1938 Standard Twelve (which the author named 'The Black Beetle') through Northern Africa, starting at Benghazi, at the time of the rise of Mussolini & his Fascists, and culminating in the author witnessing the Italian Army's march on the Nile. It was also published under the title 'The Road To Benghazi'.

Auto Nomad In Barbary by Wilson MacArthur (1950) is the account account of author's 3000 mile car journey across North Africa from Tangier to Cairo.

Auto Nomad Through Africa by Wilson MacArthur (1951) is the story of the author and his wife's journey from Aexandria to Durban in their car.

The Desert Watches by Wilson MacArthur (1954) is story of the hazardous crossing of the great Sahara Desert. The author and his wife started from Algiers and bound for their home in Rhodesia, made the entire journey of more than two thousand miles in a new and highly unreliable car, resulting in a breath-taking adventure.

J F MacDonald

John Forrest MacDonald (1897 - 1967) was a British author who served as a military junior officer in Africa during World War II.

Zambesi River by J F MacDonald (1955) is a vivid description of the geography and history of natural life along the banks of the Zambesi. It starts from the river's meanderings at the source, its sluggish flow through marshes, its flow through the rapids and Victoria Falls and its course over the vast lower reaches of the delta. The scenery is constantly changing, from wilderness to forests, tributaries and alluvial plains, the haunts of crocodile, hippo, tiger fish, lions, eagles and vultures. The author also includes the little-known history of half-forgotten tribes, of British exploration and Portuguese settlement.

Abyssinian Adventure by J F MacDonald (1957) is the author's account of serving as a young British subaltern in the Northern Frontier District of Kenya and Ethiopia, fighting against the Italians in World War II.

The War History Of Southern Rhodesia: 1939-45 by J F MacDonald (1947 & 1950) is a 2 volume account of the role played by troops from Southern Rhodesia in World War II. A high percentage of Rhodesians volunteered to serve, including in the navy, taking part in every theatre of war.

Bror MacDonell

Mzee Ali: The Biography Of An African Slave-Raider Turned Askari And Scout by Bror MacDonell (2008) Mzee Ali Kalikilima was born near Tabora in western Tanzania, probably in the 1870s. At age 14, he led his first slaving safari to the shores of Lake Tanganyika and with his caravan of captured slaves and ivory, to the markets of Dar es Salaam, some 1,200 kilometers away. With the arrival of the German colonizers, Ali joined the German East African forces as an askari. He saw action at the Battle of Salaita Hill near Mombasa and was with General von Lettow-Vorbeck to the end, fighting a guerrilla campaign through southern Tanganyika, Portuguese East Africa, Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia until the final surrender. After the war, he joined the British Colonial Service as a game scout.

Donald MacIntosh

Donald MacIntosh (1927 - 2014) was a Scottish forester and author. In the 1950s, after studying forestry in Scotland, he set off to work in the forests of West Africa - the interior of West and Central Africa was known at that time as 'the white man's grave' due to hardships and prevalent diseases. It was the beginning of his 30 years as a tree prospector and surveyor in the forest of West Africa. He began to write after retiring from the forestry business, including books and articles on Scotland and fishing.

Travels In The White Man's Grave by Donald MacIntosh (1998) is an account of the author's life as a tree prospector, forest botanist and surveyor for 30 years in some of the most remote areas of West Africa. His adventures took him along the shores of the Gulf of Guinea from Liberia to Gabon where he listened to the tales of hunters, fishermen, chiefs and witch doctors from a vast variety of tribes. MacIntosh had many adventures with the creatures of the forest, from leopards to homicidal buffalo, and from vipers to spitting cobras.

Forest Of Memories by Donald MacIntosh (2001) is the author's second collection of tales of his West African travels as a forester which are full of rich characters and humour.

On the Mahogany Trail: Reminiscences Of The African Rainforest by Donald MacIntosh (2001) provides detailed information about all the important African timbers and describes their properties and particular application. it is a valuable reference book about trees and timber but also a very readable account of the author's adventures in the timber trade in Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Gabon, Liberia and the Ivory Coast.

Ian Mackie

Trek Into Nuba by Ian Mackie (1994) is a fascinating account of the author's first tour of duty in the Sudan, as an Inspector of Agriculture from 1942 to 1945. After his first year working on the gravity-fed Gezira irrigation scheme, he was posted to the Nuba Mountains of south central Sudan, the home of the Nuba people and one of the most remote locations in Africa. His account of life on trek, by truck and on horseback, is told with humour. The hazards of travelling in the remoter parts of Africa in those days included escaping a rapidly flooding plain and watercourse with a group of nomadic Baggara Arabs.

Mafonyoke

Foxterriers And Mauserdays by Mafonyoke (2015) is an account of how tourism and hunting rapidly grew into such big business in the 1980s. 'The custody of nature had for the first time in the Lowveldt's history became its prime raison d'etre. With the formation of new game reserves on cattle ranches and removal of the Kruger Parks western boundaries fences, the call for 'back to nature' had become irreversible'.

Gabriel Reid Maguire & Ruth Burns Maguire

An Irishman In The Jungles Of Africa by Gabriel Reid Maguire & edited by Ruth Burns Maguire (1935) is the biography of Gabriel Reid Maguire, an Irish-American Baptist missionary in the Congo.

Albert Mahuzier

Albert Mahuzier (1907 - 1980) was a French adventurer, film-maker and writer.

Tragic Safari by Albert Mahuzier (1956) is about an ill-fated hunting & photographic safari to Chad and French West Africa. Albert Mahuzier went to Africa to take colour photographs of dangerous wild animals, but the journey ended in tragedy when his guide, Marcel Vincent, was killed by a lion.

Albert Mahuzier's many adventure books in French

Guiseppe Maniscalco

Guiseppe Maniscalco (1910 - 1974) was a Sicilian who was sent to Africa to fight as a soldier in the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia.The war ended when the South Africans and the English liberated the area. He was then interned with other Italian soldiers from the Sudan near Asmara. In order not to be kept captive, he found work trading in livestock in Ethiopia. However he and his friend were attacked by bandits in Ethiopia and as the only survivor, he decided to walk to the Sudan, while avoiding walking into British controlled areas. He reached the Congo where he became ill with malaria. He then crossed into Northern Rhodesia which he was told was a British territory so he quickly crossed the Zambezi river to get into Mozambique. On hearing that the government would not allow any former prisoners of war to remain in their territory, he crossed into South Africa.He was arrested and imprisoned there until one immigration official finally believed his story and helped him to recover his health on a farm. He eventually was allowed to permanently stay in South Africa, returning to Italy once to see his son, 33 years after he left.

Miles And Miles And Miles: The Story Of A Man's Lone Hike From Ethiopia To South Africa by Guiseppe Maniscalco (1968) is the account by the this long adventurous journey through Africa on foot, taking on the hazardous environment and the dangers from man and beast. The 1969 English edition of this book is titled 'The Longest Walk'.

Jule Mannix

Jule Junker Mannix (1914 - 1977) was an American actress who gave up her career when she married Daniel P Mannix and travelled around the world, collecting and raising exotic animals, some of which were donated to Philadelphia Zoo. She also edited and co-wrote some of her husband's many books.

Daniel Pratt Mannix IV (1911 – 1997) was an American author, journalist, photographer, sideshow performer, stage magician, animal trainer and filmmaker. He was also a big game hunter who assisted J A Hunter with the publication of his manuscripts, for 'Hunter', 'Tales Of The African Frontier' and 'African Bush Adventures', the latter of which was made into a film called 'Killers Of Kilimanjaro'. (Alan Wkyes assisted with 'Hunter's Tracks' by J A Hunter). Mannix also assisted Peter Ryhiner with his book 'The Wildest Game'.

Adventure Happy: The Story Of My Marriage To A small Menagerie by Jule Mannix (1954) is the autobiographical story of the author's 12 year marriage to Daniel P Mannix during which she took care of eagles, a cheetah and assorted small pets. She accompanied her husband to Africa where he and J A Hunter completed their book 'Hunter'. The book includes tales of collecting bald and golden eagles in Mexico, the story of Grace Wiley and her snakes which led to tragedy and there are the rhino, hippo and elephants and lions which John Hunter showed them in Africa. This book was published in the UK with the title 'Married To Adventure'.

Joan Mark

Patrick Tracy Lowell Putnam (1904 - 1953) was an American anthropologist and businessman. Some sources refer to him as an odd combination of dilettante and expert, or maverick anthropologist. After graduating from Harvard with a degree in anthropology, he joined the Wulsin Harvard-Radcliffe expedition to the Congo for linguistic and ethnological study. In 1928, he returned to the Bambuti pygmies of the Ituri forest to continue his research, setting up Camp Putnam and staying for 25 years. A degenerative lung disease confined him to a wheelchair, and in the last years of his life he became a tyrant in his forest 'kingdom' and tried to destroy it.

King Of The World In The Land Of The Pygmies by Joan Mark (1995) is an interpretive biography of Patrick Tracy Lowell Putnam, who spent twenty-five years living among the Bambuti pygmies of the Ituri Forest, now in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. On the Epulu River he constructed Camp Putnam with his American wife. He modelled his camp on the 'dude ranches' of the American West where visitors could enjoy the luxuries of civilisation while hunting, observing pygmy demonstrations and photographing wildlife in the jungle. Among his visitors was journalist and author, Emily Hahn who wrote a book about her experiences there called 'Congo Solo'.

Clements R Markham

Sir Clements Robert Markham (1830 – 1916) was an English geographer, explorer and writer of histories, biographies and travel accounts. He travelled to the Arctic, Peru and India before he was selected to accompany Sir Robert Napier's military expeditionary force to Abyssinia, as the expedition's geographer because the geography of the country was so little known. This force was despatched by the British government as a response to actions taken by the Abyssinian King Theodore which included imprisoning the British consul and his staff. Markham also acted as the party's naturalist, reporting on the species of wildlife encountered during the 400 mile march from the coast.

A History Of The Abyssinian Expedition by Clements Robert Markham (1869) is an account of the 1867-1868 expedition to Abyssinia which includes a "chapter containing an account of the mission and captivity of Mr Rassam and his companions by Lieutenant W F Prideaux".

Frederick Marryat

Frederick Marryat (1792 - 1848) was an English Royal Navy officer, novelist and contemporary and acquaintance of Charles Dickens. He also developed a widely used system of maritime flag signalling, known as Marryat's Code.

The Mission: Or Scenes In Africa by Frederick Marryat (1845) is arguably the first significant novel written about Africa. It is a book of African adventures written for 'young people'. They are fictional accounts founded on real experiences and adventures in South Africa in the early nineteenth century. Free eBook

Otto Martens & Dr O Karstedt

The African Handbook And Traveller's Guide by Otto Martens & Dr O Karstedt (1932) is an incredibly detailed travel guide to nearly the whole continent of Africa - except the north, Mediterranean coast and hinterland. The authors included a huge amount of concise information - topography, climate, history, economics, administration, hunting, flora, fauna with fold-out maps and statistical data - anything that any traveller to Africa may need to know. It was produced for the German African Shipping Lines.

A later edition was published in 1938 The African Handbook: A Guide To West, South And East Africa

David Martin

Hwange: Elephant Country: Zimbabwe by David Martin (1996) is a travel guide for game-viewing safaris in Zimbabwe.

Henno Martin

Henno Martin (1910 - 1998) was a German professor of geology who, with Hermann Korn, lived for two years in the Namib Desert to avoid internment during the Second World War. After the war he worked as a consulting geologist, specialising in exploration for underground water resources. He selected the locations of boreholes throughout South-West Africa and particularly in the capital Windhoek, where he provided the city with its first large-scale, reliable source of water.

The Sheltering Desert by Henno Martin (1958). At the start of WWII, two German field geologists working in South West Africa, (Namibia) faced internment. They decided to take their chances living rough in the desert of the Kuiseb River Gorges - one of the world's harshest environments. They managed for two and a half years before beri-beri illness required them to turn themselves in.

Wilhelm Mattenklodt

Ernst Wilhelm Mattenklodt (1886 - 1931) was a German colonial farmer, hunter, soldier, fugitive and ethnographer. In 1908 he went to German South West Africa, now Namibia, to farm cattle and sheep and also doing extensive hunting trips to southern Angola and the Caprivi region. After Germany's defeat in World War I, the German colonial militia were allowed to return to their farms but every minor transgression against their servants (mainly Ovambo and Herero) was heavily punished by the British. As Germans were seen as incapable of administering colonies, Mattenklodt and four others tried to move to East Africa but were captured. Mattenklodt managed to escape and with two others, lived as an outlaw in the north of Namibia and Angola and after many adventures and narrow escapes from the English they arrived back in Germany in the middle of 1920.

After the war, Mattenklodt returned to Africa four times and organized regular hunting and filming expeditions as a living. On one of his expeditions, he had a severe attack of sleeping sickness and died in 1931, aged 45.

Fugitive In The Jungle by Wilhelm Mattenklodt (1931) is the account of the author's life while on the run from the British after World War I. He lived as an outlaw in the north of Namibia and Angola before finding his way back to Germany in 1920. This book was also published in the UK as 'A Fugitive in South-West Africa'.

Marius Maxwell

Marius Maxwell (1887 - 1936) started out in the sugar cane business in India before becoming a coffee grower in Kenya. He was a keen big game sportsman but gave it up in favour of the camera. He was a photography pioneer in taking wildlife close-ups and photographing from a moving car.

Stalking Big Game With A Camera In Equatorial Africa by Marius Maxwell (1924). In this book Maxwell pays his respects to C G Schillings and A Radclyffe Dugmore, pioneers in the field of big game photography. However neither of them were able to capture animals with enough detail to satisfy the naturalists. In order to accomplish this Maxwell tried to use a telephoto lens as little as possible and relied primarily on an ordinary lens, which necessitated close proximity to the animals in order to obtain the best shot. The results are stunning.

Marcuswell Maxwell

Colonel Marcuswell Maxwell (1891 -1938) was another wildlife photographer much in the vein of Marius Maxwell - a photographic artist.

Elephants And Other Big Game Studies by Marcuswell Maxwell (1930) are camera studies of elephants from two expeditions to Kenya and the Serengeti Plains in the 1920s.

Big Game Photographs From The Times by Marcuswell Maxwell (1927) are 28 plates of old black and white photographs of a pride of lions, warthogs, buffalo, giraffes and rhinoceros taken in Kenya and Tanganyika.

Madge Mayall

Safari: Kenya-Uganda 1968 by Madge Mayall (1968) is an account of the author's trip to Kenya and Uganda with her husband, Rex, in 1968. The book was written mostly for the couple's friends who may have wanted to go on safari in the future.

Charles Mayer

Charles Mayer (1862 - 1927) was an American animal capture expert.

Jungle Beasts I Have Captured by Charles Mayer (1924) are tales of his exploits capturing animals (rhinos, orangutans, elephants and tigers), mostly on the Malay peninsula which he traded with zoos and circuses.

Trapping Wild Animals In Malay Jungles by Charles Mayer (1921) is Mayer's account of running away with the circus and how he came to travel to the jungle to capture wild animals. Free eBook

James McCarthy

The Road To Tanganyika: The Diaries Of Donald Munro And William McEwan edited by James McCarthy (2000) is the story, taken from the diaries of engineers Donald Munro and William McEwan, of the construction of the Stevenson Road in Nyasaland, now Malawi, in the nineteenth century. The ambitious project was to link British territories through East and central Africa, with the road running from Lake Nyasa to Lake Tanganyika and further on to reach the Indian Ocean.

Gerald McKiernan & P Serton (Editors)

The Narrative And Journal Of Gerald McKiernan In South West Africa 1874-1879 by Gerald McKiernan & P Serton (ed) (1954) tells of the travels of an American trader in South-West Africa, now Namibia, and gives an interesting picture of life in the territory during the last decade before the German colonial period.

Sandy McMath

Africa Alone: Odyssey Of An American Traveler by Sandy McMath (1983) is the tale of the author's journey alone, in his old Toyota Landcruiser, from the tip of north of Africa, in Morocco to the tip of South Africa.

F W H Migeod

Frederick William Hugh Migeod (1872 - 1952) was a British author, linguist and ethnologist who started service with the Colonial Civil Service from 1900. He was stationed in the Gold Coast until 1919. He then began a series of expeditions to Lake Chad, Cameroon, Sierra Leone and twice crossed equatorial Africa. From 1925-1927 and again in 1929 and 1931 he led a British Museum East Africa expedition to excavate dinosaur bones. He was the author of several books about the natural history, botany and languages in west and central Africa.

Across Equatorial Africa by F W H Migeod (1923) is the account of the author's two journeys across Africa - the first from the Cameroons, Gabon and following the equator to Lake Victoria to Mombasa, the second further south through Tanganyika to the mouth of the River Congo on the Atlantic.

Through Nigeria To Lake Chad by F W H Migeod (1924) is an account of the author's travels to Lake Chad by way of the Benue river, with a return journey along the northern frontier of Nigeria to Kano through semi-desert and by railway to Lagos. He studied ethnology, especially the movements of tribes caused by the desiccation of the country.

A View Of Sierra Leone by F W H Migeod (1926). The first part of the book is an account of the author's six months of travelling through Sierra Leone from 1924 to 1925. The second part is an account of the Mende people and includes much on witchcraft, superstitions, secret societies, games, songs, etc.

Through British Cameroons by F W H Migeod (1925) is an account of the author's journey to the British Cameroons which was a British mandate territory in British West Africa at the time.

D M Miller

Daniel Morison Miller (1888 - 1965) was the Deputation and Editorial Secretary of the Africa Inland Mission who, in the 1930s, undertook a 16,000 mile tour of AIM stations in Africa.

Central Africa Revisited by D M Miller (1937) is a record of the author's 16,000 mile journey to visit the African Inland Mission stations in Kenya, Tanganyika, Uganda, Congo, Sudan and Egypt.

Roland Minor

A Lot Of Loose Ends: A Vet In Africa: The Drama, Humour And Politics Of Animal Care On The Dark Continent by Roland Minor (2013) is an account of the author's experiences in treating animals of all shapes and sizes in Africa. He left the UK in 1963 for his first veterinary post, in Uganda and since, holding senior government posts or practising independently, he worked in Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and Botswana.

Richard Modlin

Malachite Lion: A Travel Adventure In Kenya by Richard Modlin (2002) describes what appears to be a regular safari itinerary starting in Nairobi, then continuing to Masai Mara and Amboseli, then to Mombasa, Malindi and the Seychelles. Apparently this "exciting account of his travels through Kenya and the Seychelles will dispel some of the apprehensions that cloak this strange land and its people. His experiences as a scientist and academic have provided him with the skills to interestingly record his provocative observations, interactions, experiences, feelings and thoughts, and transport the reader beyond the confines of a tour bus".

J P Moffett

John Perry Moffett (1909 - 1972) was the Commissioner for Social Development in Tanganyika. He accompanied an excavation expedition to Kilwa to find ruins of a previously unknown city which was led by the historian and archaeologist Anthony Gervase Mathew.

Handbook Of Tanganyika edited by J P Moffett & Published by Government of Tanganyika (1958) contains information of the history of Tanganyika, from the earliest times to the published date just before independence. There is a full account of the local government system and the flora, fauna, reptiles, birds, amphibians and vegetation are described by experts in these fields.

Ronald A Monson

Ronald Austin Monson (1905 - 1973) was a Australian journalist and war correspondent. After his walk across Africa and as an Australian war correspondent, he covered many of the key World War II battles and events such as the evacuation of Dunkirk, the Blitz on London, Normandy landings on D-Day and many more conflicts after WWII.

Across Africa On Foot by Ronald A Monson (1931) is the narrative of the journey from Cape Town to Cairo, plus an attempt to climb Kilimanjaro, undertaken in September 1928 by Ronald A Monson and another Australian, Edward Alexander Robert Cooke. Cooke only got as far as Johannesburg before he decided to quit the journey. The journey was then completed in December 1929 by Ronald A Monson and James Hunter Wilson, Monson's friend and an accountant from Johannesburg. Wilson could not allow a pal to go footslogging over "Darkest Africa" alone. Free eBook

Ernst D Moore

"Ernst D. Moore was 23 when his uncle brought him into the family ivory business. From 1907 to 1911, Moore was based primarily in Zanzibar, buying elephant tusks in the market and traveling to the interior of Africa, where he bought directly from great hunters of the day for Arnold Cheney & Co., which supplied both Pratt, Read and Comstock, Cheney. He lived in a house with carved teakwood gates, entertained Teddy Roosevelt at the Mombasa Club, bought hundreds of tons of ivory, & then came home to marry a woman in Chester and work for Pratt, Read as an executive in the company's player piano division. Fluent in Swahili and the argot that grew out of African and Arab trade, Moore interviewed former slaves to build his story about the ivory trade, which he called "a terrible vocation." During the second half of the 19th century, the height of the ivory trade, Moore wrote, "the dhows that lay at anchor off the town were packed with slaves awaiting transport to Arabia and the Gulf. Slaves lay on the sloping beach, dead slaves, not worth the burying, thrown there to rot until the tide carried their bloated bodies out to sea." Moore described the ivory gathering of the 19th century as carnage." Excerpt from the Hartford Courant

Ivory: Scourge Of Africa by Ernst D Moore (1931). The scarce and still harrowing personal account of an ivory trader who conducted business shortly after the turn of the century when Africa's people and natural resources were being plundered by Arab and European nations.

Martin Moore

Our Best African Safari Yet: Adventures In Botswana by Martin Moore (2018) is a personal account of Elaine and Martin Moore's photographic safari in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. The book shares everyday and extraordinary events when on safari and is a also a guide to help readers who may want to go on safari.

Randall Jay Moore & Christopher Munnion

Back To Africa by Randall Jay Moore & Christopher Munnion (1989) is the story of Randall Moore's quest to return three circus-trained African elephants from Washington State to the continent of their birth and eventually to new lives in what is now the Pilanesberg National Park, South Africa.

Elephants For Africa by Randall Jay Moore & Christopher Munnion (2000) is essentially the same story of returning 3 elephants back to Africa as in 'Back To Africa'. However, it is a sumptuous coffee table book with incredible photographs by Horst Klemm. The book also includes the tale of Randall Moore's creation of the luxury lodge 'Abu's Camp' in Botswana, where a herd of African elephants were trained to take tourists on safari in the Okavango.

Donald R Morris

The Washing Of The Spears: The Rise And Fall Of The Great Zulu Nation by Donald R Morris (1965) is the definitive account of the bloody and tragic story of the rise of the Zulu nation under the great ruler Shaka, and its fall under Cetshwayo in the Zulu War of 1879. For over a century after the European landing at Capetown in the 17th century, the Boers advanced unopposed into the vast interior of Africa. It was not until 1824 that Europeans came face to face with another expanding and imperial power, the Zulus - the most formidable nation in black Africa. That confrontation ignited a prolonged struggle, which culminated in a bitter war, the last despairing effort of Africans to stem the tide of white civilization. The result was a dramatic, legendary and bloody defeat at Isandhlwana for the British; the aftermath was the defeat and fall of the remarkable Zulu nation. The Zulus challenged the might of Victorian England, and armed only with their spears, their rawhide shields and their incredible courage, they inflicted upon the British the worst defeat a modern army has ever suffered. Read Review

Nicholas Mosley

Nicholas Mosley (1923 - 2017) was a British author and a son of the British fascist leader of the 1930s, Sir Oswald Mosley.

African Switchback by Nicholas Mosley (1958) is an account of the author's journey by car from Dakar to Lagos across West Africa, with his friend Hugo Charteris (1922 - 1970) (a Scottish novelist and screenwriter).

John A Murray

Wild Africa: Three Centuries Of Nature Writing From Africa edited by John A Murray (1993) is a diverse collection of African nature and travel writing with traditional myths and stories. The literature from the African continent includes the writings of Isak Dinesen, Joseph Conrad, John Barrow, Teddy Roosevelt, David Livingstone and J H Patterson to more contemporary contributions from Peter Matthiessen, Cynthia Moss and biologist Delia Owens.

T A M Nash

Thomas Arthur Manly Nash (1905 - 1993) was a British entomologist known for his work on tsetse flies. In 1927 he was employed by the Colonial Office to investigate aspects of the biology of tsetse flies, the vectors of the trypanosomes which cause sleeping sickness in humans, and a related disease of domestic livestock in much of tropical Africa. In 1962 Nash founded the Tsetse Research Laboratory of the University of Bristol. He was a research fellow of the university and director of the laboratory.

A Zoo Without Bars by T A M Nash (1984) is a lighthearted look at the author's life in the East African wilderness from 1927 to 1932, researching the tsetse fly and methods to control it.

Africa's Bane: The Tsetse Fly by T A M Nash (1969) is a very readable account about tsetse flies, the diseases and the human and social problems they present. The tsetse flies were, and still are, a dangerous insect in sub-saharan Africa.

Ernest Neal

Ernest Gordon Neal (1911 - 1998) was a British zoologist who was known for his work on badgers, earning him the nickname of 'Badger Man'. He travelled to East Africa many times in his career, many of them as a guest lecturer.

Uganda Quest by Ernest Neal (1971) is an account of the author's three years spent in the Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda working as a zoologist studying the medium-sized carnivores, particularly the banded mongoose about which he gives much new information. He also describes most of the major animals of the park - elephants, hippos, buffalo, lions, hyenas, bats and birds, plus his nocturnal wanderings in search of the more elusive carnivores.

On Safari In East Africa: A Background Guide by Ernest Neal (1992) explains everything likely to be seen while on safari in East Africa. This book goes beyond identification of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles and looks at how they evolved and why they behave as they do. It covers the wildlife of the Serengeti, forests of Kilimanjaro and the flamingo covered Lake Nakuru.

James H Neal

James H Neal was a British accountant who worked as Chief Accountant & Financial Advisor for the Government in Palestine and Mauritius as well as Ghana.

Ju-Ju In My Life by James H Neal (1966) describes witchcraft cults and magic the author encountered in his ten-year career as a Chief Investigations Officer in Ghana. This book was subsequently published with the title 'Jungle Magic: My Life Among The Witch Doctors Of West Africa'.

L M Nesbitt

Ludovico Marcello Mariano Nesbitt (1891 - 1935 ) had British father and Italian mother and qualified in engineering in England. He worked in the gold mines of South Africa and was later hired as an oil researcher in Venezuela. In 1928 he accomplished the most significant feat of crossing the Ethiopian Danakil depression from south to north with two companions. Danakil was a land that had been largely unexplored until then and never before entirely crossed by a European. Other explorers before him had tried, including Gustavo Bianchi and Giuseppe Maria Giulietti but no one had come out alive. In 1935 while he was preparing for another major journey, the crossing of Africa from north to south by car, he died in an aircraft crash on the Swiss Alps.

Desert And Forest: The Exploration Of Abyssinian Danakil by L M Nesbitt (1934) is the account of his journey, by donkey and on foot, with two companions, across the Danakil depression which is a vast plain between the Abyssinian Plateau and Eritrea on the Red Sea. It is credited to be the hottest, driest and lowest place on the planet, so this journey was no mean feat. This title is the British publication. Other publications of the same book have different titles, such as 'Abyssinia Unveiled: Desert And Forest' and 'Hell-Hole Of Creation: The Exploration of Abyssinian Danakil'. Free eBook

David Newman

The Forgotten Path by David Newman (1965) is about a 1959 motoring expedition without back-up from London to Lagos via the Sahara Desert in a Ford Zephyr car to visit a friend.

Charles Nicholl

Somebody Else: Arthur Rimbaud In Africa, 1880-91 by Charles Nicholl (1997) Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (1854 – 1891) was a French poet known for his transgressive and surreal themes. This book, however, is about his life after giving up poetry and his life in France by travelling to Africa. The author pieces together the shadowy story of Rimbaud’s life as a trader, explorer and gun-runner in Somalia, Djibouti, in the highlands of Ethiopia and in the souks of Cairo. In 1885, Rimbaud became involved in a major deal to sell and transport old Remington rifles to Menelik II, king of Shewa, which turned out to be a disaster. After travelling across the Danakil desert, when Rimbaud arrived, Menelik no longer needed the old guns, so got them for a far lower price than expected.

T R Nicholson

A Toy For The Lion by T R Nicholson (1965) is a later amusing account of Bede Bentley, his mechanic and a dog delivering a Siddeley car to King Menelek after a 3000 mile road trip in 1907-08. This author tells the tale from a different perspective from the book by Clifford Hallé, who knew Bede Bentley well.

Les & Genny Nuckolls

Growing Up In Africa by Les & Genny Nuckolls (2007) is the tale of an American couple who moved to Africa to teach in a bush college near the Congo border. The book chronicles the lives of their two daughters with episodes of escaping renegade cobras and cockroaches, making friends with lions and a chimpanzee and nearly getting squashed by elephants.

John Nunneley

Tales From The King's African Rifles by John Nunneley (1998) is an account of the author's experiences during the Second World War as an officer in the King's African Rifles serving first in Abyssinia and Somaliland and later in Burma.

Bryan O'Donoghue

Black Rhino Rescue by Bryan O'Donoghue (1976)

Silvana Olivo

Zambezi Valley: The Lost Stronghold: An Account Of Zimbabwe's Rhino War by Silvana Olivo (2018) is a testament to the dedication of those who fought to protect Zimbabwe’s Zambezi Valley, considered in the 1980s as the last stronghold for the greatest concentration of wild black rhinos in Africa. The war against poachers by game scouts and rangers was lead in Zimbabwe by the founder of Operation Stronghold, Glenn Tatham. The author was personally involved in Operation Stronghold run by Zimbabwe’s National Parks Department when she became its official Italian chapter for 5 years. The pace of the emergency unfolds in this book, through the direct reporting of experiences in the field – the aftermath of shoot-outs with poachers and the translocation and dehorning of rhinos.

Owen Rowe O'Neil

Adventures In Swaziland: The Story Of A South African Boer by Owen Rowe O'Neil (1921) is a memoir of the author's experiences as a young man growing up in South Africa during the early 20th century. The focus of the book is on his time spent in Swaziland and his fascination by the wild and untamed landscape of Swaziland, which was then a British protectorate. He made several trips to the country, and the book chronicles his adventures there. Free eBook

Lars-Henrik Ottoson

Lars-Henrik Ottoson (1922 - 2010) was a Swedish journalist and author.

Mara Moja: From Northernmost Scandinavia To The Cape Of Good Hope by Lars-Henrik Ottoson (1956) is an account of a remarkable 40,000 mile journey in a Volkswagen bus from the northernmost tip of Europe to the southernmost tip of Africa and back again. The journey took them through 34 countries and many adventures.

A Heck Of A Life by Lars-Henrik Ottoson (2010) is the author's life story of adventures and shifts in occupation, location and fortunes. His work as a journalist included covering the Nuremberg trials after World War II for BBC, and the 1959 win of Swedish heavyweight boxing champion Ingemar Johansson. He then wrote books and made films in Africa as well as the Cape-to-Cape journey in a VW bus.

Roderic Owen

Roddy Owen's Africa: A journey By Land-Rover Across The Seventy-Year Gap Between A Pioneer In Africa And His Great-Nephew by Roderic Owen (1967) is an account of journey made by the author in the 1960s retracing the steps of his great-uncle, Major Edward Roderick (Roddy) Owen (1856 - 1896) in Africa. Roddy Owen was a successful army officer and steeplechase rider who went to Africa in 1893 with the Portal Mission in Uganda. He founded a series of forts on the western border of the Kingdom of Toro in the new protectorate of Uganda on behalf of Sir Gerald Portal, collecting the Egyptian-Sudanese troops left behind by Emin Pasha after his meeting with Henry Morton Stanley at Wadelai. The Owen Falls Dam on Lake Victoria, was named as a tribute to the officer and jockey Roddy Owen, as founder of Fort Portal and winner of the Grand National horse race at Aintree in 1891. The name was later changed to Nalubaale Dam.

Eve Palmer

Plains Of Camdeboo by Eve Palmer (1966) is the story of four generations of the author's family who have lived on the Camdeboo plains in the Great Karoo desert - the great plain towards the southern tip of Africa. The area of Camdeboo was proclaimed as Camdeboo National Park in 2005. It includes the natural history and folklore about one of the world's least known regions.

Richard & Rita Pankhurst

Richard Keir Pethick Pankhurst (1927 -2017) was a British Ethiopian scholar, founding member of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies and former professor at the University of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. He wrote numerous books about the history of Ethiopia.

Ethiopian Reminiscences: Early Days by Richard & Rita Pankhurst (2013) is a joint autobiography in which the authors recount stories about growing up with unusual parents (Richard Pankhurst's mother was the suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst) and their early lives, when in 1958, they went to live in Ethiopia.

More books about Ethiopia by Richard Pankhurst

Richard Pape

Richard Bernard Pape (1916 – 1995) was a British journalist who served with the RAF in World War II, during which he was captured twice and escaped twice.

Cape Cold To Cape Hot by Richard Pape (1956) is the account of the author's drive from northern Norway to Cape Town in South Africa. He was the first man to drive from within the Arctic Circle in northern Europe to the southern tip of Africa, via the Sahara desert, in an ordinary Austin A90 Westminster car.

Charles Partee

The subject of this book, William Donald McClure (1906 - 1977) was an American Presbyterian missionary in Africa. He started various missions in the Sudan and Ethiopia before was killed by guerillas in 1977 in Gode, Ethiopia. His death was described in a letter sent home by his wife, Lydia and son, Don Jr.

Adventure In Africa: The Story Of Don McClure by Charles Partee (1992) describes five decades of adventurous commitment to serving some of the most primitive people of Sudan and Ethiopia in the mid-20th century. Don McClure spent much of his life among the Shulla, Nuer, Dinka, Anuak and Somali people and reflects a brave and energetic man who was devoted to East Africa, before he was shot dead in 1977.

Bruce D Patterson

Lions Of Tsavo: Exploring The Legacy Of Africa's Notorious Man-Eaters by Bruce D Patterson (2004) presents forensic evidence that the man-eating behaviour of the lions exhibited in 1898 was likely due to pathology. The author has demystified the tale of two male lions who began to hunt, kill and devour railway workers for more than 9 months and thought to have claimed the lives of 135 people. Kindle Version

R O Pearse

Empty Highways: Ten Thousand Miles By Road And Lake Through East And Central Africa by R O Pearse (1935) is the story of Reg and Edith Pearse on the road to Kilimanjaro, Mount Kenya and the Ruwenzori in 1934, travelling in a Model T Ford. The journey covered ten thousand miles without the vehicle giving any trouble.

John Pearson

Wildlife And Safari In Kenya by John Pearson (1970) is a comprehensive guide for travellers to Kenya based on a collection of illustrated articles by various authors, including Joy Adamson, J S Kirkman, Peter Beard and more.

John Perott

Save Mozambique's Elephant Coast by John Perott (2007) is an account about how the author was recruited by an 'entrepreneur' known as Jim, to produce a feasibility study to obtain a 40,000 acre site on the Indian Ocean in Mozambique for private development into a 'world class international eco-tourist destination'. The development failed when Jim died in 1999. The author then set about targeting a billionaire or Disney to fund the expansion of the area to be the largest wildlife refuge and potentially supply additional range for the Kruger Park elephant herds.

D W Phillipson

Mosi-Oa-Tunya: A Handbook To The Victoria Falls Region edited by D W Phillipson (1975) provides a complete account of the entire area, both Zambian and Zimbabwean and aims to help the visitor whose sightseeing is restricted to one country to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the Falls. Each chapter of this book contains information from various contributors on topics such as the geology and formation of the Victoria Falls, stone-age man at the Victoria Falls, traditional history and ethnography, plus the wildlife.

Peter & Beverly Pickford

African Safari: Into The Great Game Reserves by Peter & Beverly Pickford (2016) is an account of photographic game reserve safaris on foot, on horseback, dugout canoes and hot air balloons. It covers safaris in South Africa (Kruger & the Kgalagadi), Namibia (Etosha, Damaraland & Kaokaland), Botswana (Okavango, Chobe & Linyanti), Zimbabwe (Mana Pools & the Zambezi), Zambia (North & South Luangwa), Tanzania (Ngorongoro & the Serengeti), Kenya (Masai Mara, Amboseli & Tsavo) Rwanda & Uganda (Parc des Volcans and Mgahinga).

Peter Pinney

Peter Pinney (1922 - 1992) was an Australian travel writer who used to wander the world with nothing but a string bag, the clothes on his back and sometimes a parasol. He didn’t let minor details like wars or a lack of money and visas, to get in his way. Basically he lived by his wits, conning his way across borders, surviving through a variety of jobs and other means.

Anywhere But Here by Peter Pinney (1956) which describes his journey from Mozambique to Timbuktu, through southern Rhodesia, Barotseland, Angola, Nigeria and the Gold and Ivory Coasts.

Who Wanders Alone by Peter Pinney (1954) describes the author's journey from Trieste to Zanzibar via, the then, Yugoslavia, Greece, Tunisia, Algeria, Nigeria, the Congo and Kenya.

Frederick Edward Pitts

Things Are Different In Africa: A Memoir Of Dangers And Adventures In The Congo by Frederick Edward Pitts (2004) recounts the author's experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer in an equatorial forest village deep in the Congo for a year. He recalls dangerous encounters with animals, skirmishes with robbers, dealings with crooked police officials and a motorcycle crash in the jungle 360 miles from medical care. It ends with involvement in political unrest, violence in the cities and evacuation to another country near the Sahara desert.

James Platt

The Great Tanganyika Diamond Hunt by James Platt (2007) is the account of a huge campaign to discover deposits of diamonds in Tanganyika in the 1960s. The author was a British mining geologist who was appointed as the campaign field geologist under the auspices of Williamson Diamonds Ltd. He went on to work in diamond exploration in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, now Botswana, Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia and Nyasaland, now Malawi, for four years, learning much about African peoples, wildlife and natural history.

Miggs Pomeroy & Catherine Collins

The group consisted of co-author Catherine Pomeroy Collins (1913 - 2008) and her husband, Alan Copeland Collins, a New York literary agent (1902 - 1968); co-author Miggs Pomeroy (1923 - 1995) and her husband, Robert Livingston Pomeroy (1915 - 2009), brother of Catherine Collins and a US Information Officer in Benghazi; Randolph Churchill (1911 - 1968) and his son, Winston Spencer-Churchill (1940 – 2010); American scientist, Dr Henry W Setzer (1916 - 1992) of the National Museum, Washington and Lieutenant Francis Gibb in command of 6 British soldiers of the Royal Scots Regiment.

The Great Saharan Mouse-Hunt by Miggs Pomeroy & Catherine Collins (1962) is the entertaining tale of a 6 week trip by a group of 14 British and American people who travelled in 6 Landrovers from Benghazi, Libya to the Tibesti mountains in central Sahara, northern Chad. It was partially a scientific expedition to find desert mice, as well as just a fun adventure where they encountered wandering tribesmen, ate epicurean meals of beans and champagne, found abandoned wreckage from the desert campaigns of World War II and swimming in desert lagoons.

R O Preston

Ronald Owen Preston (1867 - 1952) was a British construction engineer who worked on the Uganda Railway. When the construction of the Uganda Railway was started in 1897, R O Preston, who came from India, was assigned to the job of laying of the rails. He carried the whole task out, mile by mile, from the coast to Lake Victoria, living under canvas for 5 years. After the railway reached Lake Victoria in December 1901, Preston resigned in 1905 and settled in Nairobi.

Descending The Great Rift Valley: East Africa's Stupendous Engineering Feat by R O Preston (1942) is the extraordinary story of laying 581 miles of track over some of the most difficult terrain ever encountered. The author's wife Florence accompanied him all the way, living under canvas and suffering incredible hardships and dangers. It was Florence that drove in the last spike on 19 December 1901 at 4 o'clock in the afternoon at Port Florence (named in her honour) on the Kavirondo Gulf (at Kisumu as it is today). Preston described Mile 326 (Nairobi) as "a bleak, swampy stretch of soppy landscape, windswept, devoid of human habitation of any sort, the resort of thousands of wild animals of every species."

The Genesis Of Kenya Colony: A Paradise For Sportsmen And Tourists by R O Preston (1947) is a very scarce book of fascinating reminiscences by the Uganda Railway construction pioneer. It details the incidents and problems of the massive undertaking of building the railway - short supplies of water, work crews going down with malaria and dysentry, the man-eating lions at Tsavo, trains being derailed by locusts, caterpillars, termites and even guinea fowl.

Elizabeth Lees Price & Una Long

The Journals Of Elizabeth Lees Price: Written In Bechuanaland, Southern Africa 1854 - 1883 edited by Una Long (1956) features the correspondence of Elizabeth Lees Price, written in Bechuanaland in South Africa between the years 1854 and 1883. Elizabeth Lees Price, the daughter of missionary Robert Moffat, married another missionary, the Reverend Roger Price, in 1861. She lived and worked with him among the Bechuana tribes of southern Africa until his death in 1900. She had fourteen children, of whom ten survived childhood living in primitive conditions, travelling by ox-wagon before the railways arrived. She wrote long and detailed letters, which she called journals, to her friends and children in England and to her sister, Jeanie.

John Pringle

The Conservationists And The Killers: The Story Of Game Protection And The Wildlife Society Of Southern Africa by John Pringle (1982) covers the history of the Wildlife Society of South Africa from 1926 to 1980. Having a deep concern for nature conservation, the author was a long-time member of the Society. Interestingly, he recounts the story of when the last solitary survivor, of all the quaggas which used to inhabit South Africa, died in a cage in Amsterdam Zoo, making the species extinct. Within days of the demise of the quagga, a group of hunters formed the Natal Game Protection Association (NGPA) - the first known wildlife conservation body in South Africa.

S Tristram Pruen

Septimus Tristram Pruen (1859 - 1936) was a British surgeon who went to Africa as a medical officer with the Church Missionary Society.

The Arab And The African: Experiences In Eastern Equatorial Africa During A Residence Of Three Years by S Tristram Pruen (1891) is a medical missionary's account of life in Equatorial East Africa who "hopes that his book may throw some new light upon the Slave Trade, and the daily life of the African, as it is written by one who has lived amongst the people as their friend and equal ..." Free eBook

Oliver Ransford

Oliver Ransford (b.1914) was a British medical doctor who joined the British Colonial Medical Services, becoming a Government medical officer in Malawi for many years, before opening a private practice in Bulawayo, in 1947. He later became a well-known Rhodesian author writing a large number of books about the history of southern Africa.

Livingstone's Lake: The Drama Of Nyasa by Oliver Ransford (1966) describes in detail the ever changing nature of this inland sea from a scenic paradise to violent turbulence in an instant. The author draws the analogy of the lake, which Livingstone discovered in 1859, being reminiscent of the violence and bloodshed of slavery and brutal inter-tribal conflict.

Major R Raven-Hart

Major Roland Raven-Hart (1889 - 1971) was born in Ireland and trained as a radio/wireless engineer. He served in both World Wars on the General Staff of the British Army. After the WWI he worked in South America and Europe as a wireless engineer before retiring from the field in 1932. He then travelled to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to start canoeing the rivers of the world and writing books about his journeys.

Canoe Errant On The Nile by Major R Raven-Hart (1936) is an account of the author's canoe journey on the Nile from Wadi Halfa in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, north to Aswan and Upper Egypt.

Mitch Reardon

Mitch Reardon was a South African born wildlife photographer and writer. He worked as a ranger in South Africa and Namibia before becoming a wildlife photographer and writer. After moving to Australia in 1987, he became a freelance writer for 'Australian Geographic', travelling widely across the country.

The Besieged Desert by Mitch Reardon (1986) looks at the 1980s problems of war, drought and poaching in the Namib desert of North West Namibia where elephants, rhino and giraffe live in an envrironment unlike any other in Africa.

Etosha: Life & Death On An African Plain by Mitch & Margot Reardon (1981) is the account of the three years the author and his wife, Margot Reardon, spent photographing animals in Etosha - the 2.4 million hectare reserve in northwestern Namibia.

Shaping Addo: The Story Of A South African National Park by Mitch Reardon (2021) examines the history of the park and the impact that changing conservation practices have had on its development. The author provides insight into the lives and habits of the individual Addo animals, the relationship between them and the management strategies required to ensure their survival. Kindle version only.

Shaping Kruger by Mitch Reardon (2013) gives an insight into the lives, habits and behavior of the larger animals that significantly affect the workings of the Kruger Park. It examines individual species, predator-prey relationships, mammal distribution and browsing and grazing interactions.

Wild Karoo: A Journey Through History, Change And Revival In An Ancient Land by Mitch Reardon (2018) is an account of the authors 4,000 km journey through the Karoo, the heartland of South Africa. The Karoo was once viewed as a harsh and desolate place with limited attraction for visitors but now with reintroduced large and small game, the unique arid-adapted flora and the landscape and geology, it is gaining popularity with tourists.

Zululand: A Wildlife Heritage by Mitch & Margot Reardon (1984) is a photographic look at the game parks of Zululand which were instrumental in bringing back the black and white rhinos from the brink of extinction in South Africa.

W B Redmayne

Across Africa In A Lorry by W B Redmayne (1937) is the tale of a 5000 mile journey to visit mission stations and promote mission activity. The route taken was from Egypt through the Sudan, French Equatorial Africa, French Cameroons, Nigeria. Two 5 ton six-wheel lorries were involved, each carrying six people.

Alan Reeve

Alan Reeve (1910 - 1962) was a New Zealand-born Australian cartoonist, illustrator and journalist. As an itinerant caricaturist his work was exhibited in Australia and appeared in American magazines, including Fortune, Town & Country and Vogue.

Africa, I Presume? by Alan Reeve (1947) is a Cairo to Cape travelogue by a journalist which covers (largely by air) some 20000 miles for two London publications. The author sketches and writes of what he saw through Eygpt, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Zanzibar, Tanganyika, Portuguese East Africa and South Africa.

Henry Fenwick Reeve

Henry Fenwick Reeve (1854 – 1920 ) was a British colonial administrator and writer. He served under the British colonial governments of New South Wales, Victoria, Fiji, the Windward Islands, Gambia and Lagos. During his time in the Gambia he was employed by the Anglo-French Boundary Commission, as Chief Commissioner.

The Gambia: Its History, Ancient Mediaeval And Modern: Together With Its Geographical, Geological, And Ethnographical Conditions: And A description Of The Birds, Beasts, And Fishes Found Therein by Henry Fenwick Reeve (1912) provides European readers with a description of their colonies as real societies with their own histories and cultures, with the intention to engender a sense of obligation to provide human rights and fair treatment. Free eBook

Laura Resnick

A Blonde In Africa by Laura Resnick (1997) is an account of her trek across Africa - live mine fields in Sahara, bandits in Tanzania, an arrest in Nigeria and playing with wild gorillas in Zaire.

Mandy Retzlaff

One Hundred And Four Horses: A Memoir Of Farm And Family, Africa And Exile by Mandy Retzlaff (2014) is the story of the author's life as she and her family were forced to flee Zimbabwe when armed members of Mugabe's War Veterans' Association began violently reclaiming farms owned by white Zimbabweans. As many families in the same situation abandoned their land, they left behind dozens of horses. The author and her husband determined to save these animals, risked their lives on a long journey to bring the disparate group of horses to safety.

Lyle Rexer & Rachel Klein

American Museum Of Natural History: 125 Years Of Expedition And Discovery by Lyle Rexer & Rachel Klein (19950 recounts the first 125 years of the American Museum of Natural History and the series of expeditions "to the ends of the earth" to collect specimens for eventual exhibition. The book contains more than 240 photos which capture all the danger and difficulties of exploration and discovery.

Alexander Jacob Reynolds

African Passage by Alexander Jacob Reynolds (1934) is a travel memoir of a journey through Liberia, Ashanti (Ghana), Dahomey (Benin), Nigeria, Togo and Cameroon before and during World War I.

From The Ivory Coast To The Cameroons by Alexander Jacob Reynolds (1929) is an account of the author's travels in West Africa, from the Ivory Coast through Nigeria to the Cameroons, with detailed and colourful observations on local customs, culture and commerce.

By Desert Ways To Indian Snows by Alexander Jacob Reynolds (1932) is the story of a journey from Damsacus to Baghdad then to Karachi to Simla in the Himalayan foothills of India.

David Reynolds

Steam And Quinine On Africa's Great Lakes: The Story Of The Steamers White And Gold On Africa's Inland Waters by David Reynolds (1997) is an interesting book detailing the histories of individual vessels that worked on the great lakes of Africa. As an example, the small steamship 'Vera' started life as a German mission vessel on Lake Nyasa. She was sold to a trading company but was captured by the Germans in an attack on the town in Nyasaland. When the war ended, the 'Vera' was later bought by a former district officer, who installed a diesel engine. Later still she was sold to an Indian trader and is thought to have been taken to the Zambezi River. It is believed that she had been in service until 1971.

Lorenzo Ricciardi

The Voyage Of The Mir-El-Lah by Lorenzo Ricciardi (1980) is the tale of the author's voyage in a dhow from Shatt Al Arab on the Arabian Sea to the coast of East Africa. He travelled with his photographer and author wife, Mirella Ricciardi. The dhow, the Mir-El-Lah, travelled the classic monsoon route which Arab sailors have travelled for thousands of years. They encountered political turmoil, earthquakes, erupting volcanoes and cyclones as well as the unwelcome intrusion of the Iranian secret police, Yemeni guerillas and Somali commissars.

James Riddell

W James Riddell (1909 – 2000) was a British champion skier and author. During the World War II, Riddell was based in Jerusalem and Syria. In 1942, he was seconded to the 9th Army to set up the Middle East Ski and Mountaineering School near Beirut where he taught over 20,000 soldiers the techniques of mountain mobility and survival.

In The Forests Of The Night by James Riddell (1946) is the tale of two amateur Englishmen armed with twenty Leica cameras who ventured into the strange, dark world of the Central African forest to take pictures of animals. The book is dedicated to his travelling companion Kenneth Cecil Gander Dower, known simply as Gandar, who Riddell says should have written this book. Gandar was killed, with many others, in 1944 when the ship in which he was travelling, SS Khedive Ismail, was torpedoed off Ceylon. Free eBook

African Wonderland by James Riddell (1956) is an account of Riddell's lone journey through East Africa, Nyasaland and northern Transvaal in a quest to take photographs of big game at night by flashlight. He travelled down the Zambezi to the Indian Ocean on an old river boat, flew in an aeroplane over a flooded game reserve and climbed the Mlanje Mountain.

Herbert Rittlinger

Herbert Rittlinger (1909 - 1978) was a German writer, photographer, explorer and pioneer of folding boats and canoes. He made several paddle boat river journeys including down the Amazon and rivers in China, Japan, Australia, Greece, South America and Africa.

Ethiopian Adventure: From The Red Sea To The Blue Nile by Herbert Rittlinger (1959) is an account of the author's 1954 paddle boat journey with his wife and friends. They paddled in the Red Sea, then on Lake Tana, the origin of the Blue Nile. They put the canoes into the Blue Nile water at the Abai Bridge and had gone 35 miles before pulling out because his wife was upset when a crocodile damaged her boat.

Herb Ritts

Herbert Ritts Jr. (1952 – 2002) was an American fashion photographer and director known for his photographs of celebrities and other cultural figures throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

Africa by Herb Ritts (1994) is a collection of stunning photographs of the wildlife, landscapes and people of East Africa.

Gregg Robinson

Elephants & Albidas by Gregg Robinson (2018) is a self-published coffee-table book of photographs of the wildlife in Zimbabwe. 'Albidas' refers to the Acacia albida tree, also known in English as the ana tree or apple-ring acacia.

Mirabel Rogers

When Rivers Meet: The Story Of The First Trans-African Waterway Expedition by Mirabel Rogers (1960) is an account of the 1958 First Trans-African Waterways Expedition, led by Dr Daan Marais. They set out from the Port of Chinde in the Zambezi estuary on the Indian Ocean and travelled 5792 km via four lakes and seven major rivers to meet the Atlantic ocean at Banana Point at the Congo River estuary. The primary purpose of the expedition was to survey the route to determine the possible development of an equatorial water highway between the two oceans. The secondary purpose was to collect scientific specimens for study in parasitology, ornithology and anthropology. They used 3 15ft fibreglass boats and were supported by an overland crew in 2 vehicles with equipment and fuel.
Read more about The First Trans-African Waterway Expedition 1958 and the book by Lynne Ras, the daughter of Dr Daan Marais

Francis Rolt-Wheeler

Francis Rolt-Wheeler (1876 - 1960) was born Francis William Wheeler in England, later becoming a US citizen in 1903. He became a prolific writer, mostly of books for boys and later an occultist and episcopalian preacher.

The Tusk-Hunters by Francis Rolt-Wheeler (1927) "The lure of the wild will call to men so long as red blood flows in human veins, whether that call come from the frozen tundra of Siberia or the sweltering jungle of Equatorial Africa. In later days, a deeper spell has been given both to the 'call of the wild' and to big-game hunting, in the desire to learn the inmost secrets of the lives of animals, a spell which is shared by the scientific naturalist and the photographer alike. To try to give some measure of the life of the Elephant, how he came to be, how he lived and lives, the part that he plays in the semi-explored wilds, and to arouse a deeper appreciation of that mighty Lord of the Forest is the aim and purpose of The Author."

Heather Rooken-Smith

Daisy's Daughter: Our Lives For Africa by Heather Rooken-Smith (2017) is, despite the excessively sentimental blurb, an interesting account of a huge family of settlers and pioneers all over Africa. Just the author and her husband's lives involved many upheavals in farming, deep sea fishing ventures, the two World Wars, the Mau Mau in Kenya, Rhodesia, Angola, South West Africa (Namibia) and South Africa. The author also recounts the stories of other members of her extended family, whose lives in Africa all started with Scottish-born William Alexander Rooken-Smith who after arriving in the Cape, first went to Kenya on a hunting trip in the early 1900s, at the age of 50. He took with him his farm pupil, Arthur Cecil Hoey (1883 - 1956) who would go on to become one of the foremost white hunters, alongside Cunninghame, Judd and Black.

Eric Rosenthal

Eric Rosenthal (1905 - 1983) was a South African historian and author of many books on South African history.

Stars And Stripes In Africa by Eric Rosenthal (1938) 'Being a History of American Achievements in Africa by Explorers, Missionaries, Pirates, Adventurers, Hunters, Miners, Merchants, Scientists, Soldiers, Showmen, Engineers and others.'

Mark C Ross

Dangerous Beauty: Life And Death In Africa: True Stories From A Safari Guide by Mark C Ross (2001) is an account by an American safari guide working in Africa. He writes about deadly charges by elephants, encounters with lions, cheetahs and Cape buffalo and the excitement of witnessing the mass migrations of wildebeest. In 1999 he was camping with four clients in Uganda, searching for mountain gorillas, when Rwandan rebels crossed the border from the Congo and killed 2 of his clients and 6 other tourists.

The Micato Safaris Guide To Predators by Mark C Ross & David Reesor (date unknown) is a collection of photographs of the five great predators of the African bush - lions, cheetahs, leopards, hyenas and crocodiles. The authors shares their knowledge into the morphology, behaviours and daily activities of the large carnivores of Africa. There is a removable, fold-out guide containing the various traits and statistics of predators as well as tips on how to best observe and photograph the animals.

Predator: Life And Death In The African Bush by Mark C Ross & David Reesor (2007) could be a re-publication of 'The Micato Safaris Guide To Predators' or vice versa, it is unclear. Both books contain phenomenal photographs of the predators of Africa.

Kathaleen Stevens Rukavina

Kay Stevens (1910 - 2007) was born in Salt Lake City. From the age of six years she lived in Australia and from the age of 12 she lived in Northern Rhodesia. She married Baron Tasilo Karlo Mario Jerko Dujo Rukavina (1808 -1961), a Croatian who worked on the Copperbelt during late 1920's. Later in her life she returned to live in Maine and at some point married a Mr Foote. In addition to her books set in Africa, she wrote about Australia in 'Walkabout Down Under'.

John Edward 'Chirupula' Stephenson (c.1874 - 1957) was a British-born telegraph operator in Kimberley when he first arrived in South Africa. Looking for greener pastures further north, he travelled to Bulawayo then to Blantyre where he started his explorations on unopened country. After about two years he had the opportunity to join Rhodes and the march into Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia, under Robert Codrington.

Jungle Pathfinder: The Biography Of Chirupula Stephenson by Kathaleen Stevens Rukavina (1951) is the story of John Edward 'Chirupula' Stephenson who worked for Cecil Rhodes as one of his earliest administrators spearheading the drive to develop and settle Northern Rhodesia at the turn of the century. This is an account of Chirupula Stephenson's treks and adventures between 1896 and 1950. The author first heard about Stephenson as a 13 year old and later they became trusted friends, enabling her to write his biography.

Beyond The Zambesi by Kathaleen Rukavina (1956) is possibly a book written for children.

John Russell

Kenya Beyond The Marich Pass: A District Officer's Story by John Russell (1994) is an account of the author's life as a district officer in the West Pokot District of Rift Valley Province, Kenya in the mid-20th century. After a short spell as a District Officer (Kikuyu Guard) during the Mau Mau rebellion, the author began his career in West Pokot, as officer in charge of the Sigor Division, at the foot of the Marich Pass and the Kenya Highlands. He humourously describes the practical problems of life in a remote Kenya out-station, dealing with grazing controls, digging wells, unreliable transport, flash floods, termites, scorpions, snakes and mosquitoes.