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.

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.

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'.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Lars-Henrik Ottoson

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

Mara Moja 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 J Prickett

Treetops: Story Of A World Famous Hotel by R J Prickett (1987) is the story of a unique safari lodge in the Aberdare Mountains north of Nairobi, told by one of its most colourful and experienced hunter/escorts. The stories of the many people who have been there, including the Queen, who made a nostalgic visit in 1983, of the wildlife itself and all kinds of special happenings are vividly recorded. Treetops began as a hut in a tree somewhere in Kenya, but this was the tree where Princess Elizabeth actually became Queen Elizabeth II. The book is full of poignant and amusing anecdotes and evokes all the magic and excitement of the life of a real life hunter-escort in the Kenyan wilderness.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

Ivan Sanderson

Ivan Terence Sanderson (1911 – 1973) was a British born American biologist and prolific writer with a special interest in crytozoology. Sanderson conducted a number of expeditions as a young man into tropical areas in the 1920s and 1930s, gaining fame for his animal collecting as well as his popular writings on nature and travel.

Ivan Sanderson's Book Of Great Jungles by Ivan Sanderson (1965) details the author's travels throughout the jungles of the world in search of exotic plants, geographic features, obscure peoples and unknown animals. He visited the jungles of Ceylon, the Congo, New Guinea and the Amazon from 1928 to the 1960s. He tells intriguing stories about botanical giants, deadly plants that emit poison to the touch, great flying continents that float two hundred feet in the air and support a multitude of living creatures, witch-men, fetishes, jungle legends and the fascinating customs of many tribes.

The Dynasty Of Abu: A History And Natural History Of The Elephants And Their Relatives Past And Present by Ivan Sanderson (1962) offers a world history through the lens of the 'Abu', which is the author's collective term for the distinct African and Asian elephants, and their relationship with mankind.

Catherine Scheybeler

Africana: A Distant Journey Into Unknown Lands (2014) is the Paolo Bianchi collection of works on the exploration of Africa up to the year 1900. It offers a fascinating insight into the rich and diverse history of the African continent as seen through western eyes. The emphasis of the collection is on illustrated books and is a valuable addition to works on the subject. Paolo Bianchi began as a collector of stamps which then led to the research of the history of Italian colonisation of Africa. This then inspired him to become a passionate bibliophile and start a collection of antiquarian books. He soon expanded his collection to cover the whole of Africa and the history of African exploration. This book includes nearly 400 items.

William Charles Scully

William Charles Scully (1855 – 1943) was an Irish born, South African author. He emigrated to southern Africa with his parents in 1867, later becoming a diamond prospector with Cecil Rhodes. While writing his numerous books he worked as a magistrate. His books are mostly fiction based on real characters and events.

Between Sun And Sand: A Tale Of An African Desert by William Charles Scully (1898) reflects "the hardships suffered by nomadic farmers in Namaqualand and Bushmanland", and is "an episodic novel, notable for the creation of some memorable bushveld characters". Free eBook

John Cormac Seekings

Rudd: The Search For A Cape Merchant by John Cormac Seekings (2009). During his life-time Charles Rudd was a well-known and controversial figure in Britain and in South Africa. His involvement in the creation and development of De Beers, of Gold Fields of South Africa and its successor Consolidated Goldfields, and of the British South Africa Company, brought great personal wealth and power. But since his death in 1916 he has been forgotten. During his life-time he was overshadowed by his close friend and business partner, Cecil John Rhodes. Unlike Rhodes, Rudd shunned publicity. Unlike Rhodes, Rudd left few personal records. Although remembered by historians, Charles Dunell Rudd has been ignored by biographers. His interests ranged from the collecting of exotic ferns to the hunting of big game. In retirement he played major but forgotten roles as a kindly Scottish laird and as a generous benefactor.

Bettina Selby

Riding The Desert Trail: By Bicycle Up The Nile by Bettina Selby (1988). The author travelled the length of the Nile Valley, 4500 miles on a bicycle of her own design. She followed the course of the Nile from the delta on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, through the length of Egypt and Sudan to the Mountains of the Moon in Uganda.

Frail Dream Of Timbuktu by Bettina Selby (1991) is an account of the author's journey to explore the land of ancient African empires along the southern fringes of the Sahara. She followed the course of the Niger river, which flows deep into the Sahara Desert before turning back on itself through some of the poorest countries in West Africa.

Will Sellick

The Imperial African Cookery Book: Recipes From English-Speaking Africa by Will Sellick (2010) provides the first comprehensive overview of the extraordinary cookery traditions of British Africa which includes spices, Indian and Malaysian gastronomy, Khoesan preservation techniques, Victorian gentlemen’s club dinners and Boer survival rations.

John Seymour

One Man's Africa by John Seymour (1955) tells of the author's years in Africa which began in 1934 when he went as a trainee on a sheep farm. Subsequent jobs and experiences included another ranch job, some seasons as a pilchard fisherman at Walvis Bay, copper mining and the war in Abyssinia.

Sir Bryan Sharwood-Smith

Sir Bryan Evers Sharwood-Smith (1899 - 1983) first served in Northern Nigeria as Assistant District Officer and spent over thirty years there and it was after being the Governor of the Northern Region that he retired in 1957.

But Always Friends: Northern Nigeria and the Cameroons, 1921-57 by Sir Bryan Sharwood-Smith (1969) is his autobiographical account of his life and work as a colonial officer in the English Cameroons and northern Nigeria between 1921 and 1957. It includes details of his professional relationships and friendships with some prominent figures of pre- and post-independence northern Nigerian politics, long before they rose to regional and national prominence. Shwarwood-Smith was also responsible for hosting the Queen during her visit to northern Nigeria in 1956.

Frank Sheardown

A Man Of The Field by Frank Sheardown (1988) is the story of Sheardown's life in Kenya in the years following World War II, farming and some unorthodox hunting.

Eric Sherbrooke Walker

Major Eric George Sherbrooke Walker, MC (1887 - 1976) was a British military officer, hotelier and founder of the Outspan Hotel and Treetops Hotel in Kenya. Walker served on military duties during the Mau Mau Uprising in the early 1950s. Treetops was offered as a lookout point for the King's African Rifles, but in 1954 it was burned down by Mau Mau fighters.

Treetops Hotel by Eric Sherbrooke Walker (1963). Treetops, in forest about 100 miles from Nairobi, Kenya, acquired world fame in February 1952, when Princess Elizabeth became Queen on her father's death, while staying there. This a frank and amusing account of how Eric Sherbrooke Walker and his wife, Lady Bettie Walker, built the hotel in the trees and re-built it after it was burned down by the Mau Mau. The famous hunter Jim Corbett moved to Kenya after the independence of India, took up residence at the nearby Outspan Hotel and became the resident hunter at Treetops.

Jack Sholomir

Beachcombers Of The African Jungle by Jack Sholomir (1958) is the tale of the author's walk from Johannesburg to Egypt. On a stopover in South Africa he met Joy Koch who had decided to join him. Incidents encountered included travelling with a caravan, staying in a 'haunted castle', camping with with cannibals and pygmies and being deported from Uganda. They smuggled themselves across the border into Sudan, went by boat on the Nile and eventually escaped by ship from Alexandria.

Alex Shoumatoff

Alexander "Alex" Shoumatoff (b.1946) is an American journalist known for his nature and environmental writing.

African Madness by Alex Shoumatoff (1988) tells the stories of Dian Fossey, the murdered gorilla researcher, the Emperor Bokassa, life in modern Madagascar, and the search for the source of the AIDS virus.

In Southern Light: Trekking Through Zaire And The Amazon by Alex Shoumatoff (1986) is an account of the author's journeys in the Brazilian jungle searching for a legendary tribe of Amazon women and in the African rainforest with pygmies. Includes details about local flora and fauna, native people and the calamities that befall the intrepid author.

Anthony Smith

Anthony Smith (b.1926) is British author and former television presenter. In 1962, he led 'The Sunday Telegraph Balloon Safari' expedition, flying a helium balloon from Zanzibar to East Africa, and then across the Ngorongoro Crater.

Throw Out Two Hands: Balloon Safari Over Africa by Anthony Smith (1963). The goal in this particular adventure was to prove that the observation of animals in the wild without frightening and sending them running for miles was best done from a balloon. However, what seemed simple in concept became a complicated and major effort of organisation. By 1962, the expedition was eventually ready for Anthony Smith and his colleagues Douglas Botting and Alan Root to take their place in their tiny basket. Apart from many other things the plan, executed despite all the dangers and complexities of pursuing any plan in the gigantic world of Africa, was to make a number of captive and free flights from Zanzibar in the east to the Serengeti plains of Tanganyika in the west. Reading a book like this, it is difficult not to want to become a balloonist immediately.

C S Smith

Charles Spencer Smith (1852 - 1923) was an African American Methodist preacher who founded the Sunday School Union in Tennessee and later became a bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, travelling through Africa and the rest of the world.

In 'Glimpses Of Africa' Smith says he wanted to see how the African-American might 'help' his African brother. He admits later in the book that there was really no need for help in any capacity. On the contrary, he comments, "I confess to a feeling of pleasurable disappointment when the fact dawned on me that West Africa could supply a greater number of skilled craftsmen than for whom places could be obtained."

Glimpses Of Africa: West And Southwest Coast by C S Smith (1895) containing the author's impressions and observations during a voyage of six thousand miles from Sierra Leone to St Paul de Loanda and return. Including the Rio del Ray and Cameroon Rivers, and the Congo River from its mouth to Matadi. Free eBook

John Smith

Vet In Africa: Life On The Zambezi 1913-1933 by John Smith (1997) is a memoir of the life of a veterinary surgeon largely in Northern Rhodesia, where he established the colony's main agricultural research station and became head of the veterinary service. He saw the end of company rule and the establishment of the crown colony in 1923 and served in the Legislative and Executive Councils.

Alvan S Southworth

Alvan S Southworth (1845 - 1901) was an American travel writer, journalist and former secretary of the American Geographical Society for 2 years. Southworth's obituary in The New York Times described him as "a man of brilliant attainments and with acquaintances ranging from Princes to the habitues of lodging houses." It was the New York Herald that sent him on his expedition to Africa, after which he apparently turned in the largest expense bill ever submitted to a newspaper, reputedly between US$40,000 to US$50,000.

Four Thousand Miles Of African Travels: A Personal Record Of A Journey Up The Nile And Through The Soudan To The Confines Of Central Africa by Alvan S Southworth (1875) is a very opinionated tale of the author's travels in Eygpt and the Soudan during which he also observes..."Africa should be Americanized; the cruel wrongs suffered by her people should be atoned for by practical measures of relief, and a guardianship— not unlike that extended over India by Great Britain— should in all haste begin". There is also much about Sir Samuel Baker and how the author appears to have taken part in locating the explorer when rumours abounded in Cairo of him being missing or dead. Free eBook

Andrew (Anders) Sparrman

Anders Erikson Sparrman (1748 - 1820) was a Swedish physician and naturalist who arrived in the Cape in 1772. When the English exploring expedition under Captain Cook visited the Cape, Sparrman was invited to join and in 1772 he sailed on the 'Resolution'. In 1775 he was back at the Cape and with a friend he went on an expedition into the interior for almost a year.

A Voyage To The Cape Of Good Hope, Towards The Antarctic Polar Circle, And Round the World by Andrew Sparrman (1786). Sparrman's account of Cook's voyage, as well as his exploration in Africa, are described in this book. Free eBook

Willem Steenkamp

Willem Petrus Steenkamp (b.1940) is a South African author, journalist, historian and military analyst who has published a large number of books.

Land Of The Thirst King by Willem Steenkamp (1975) is full of history and tales from Namaqualand in South Africa by an author whose family had lived there for 150 years.
Look for more books by Willem Steenkamp

Stuart Stevens

Stuart Stevens (b.1953) is an American travel writer and political consultant.

Malaria Dreams: An African Adventure by Stuart Stevens (1989) is a humorous tale about returning a friend's Landrover from the Central Africa Republic to Europe with close encounters with killer ants in Cameroon, revolutionary soldiers in the middle of Lake Chad and strangely frenzied Peace Corps parties in Niger. There's a long search for a functional set of springs in Timbuktu and near disastrous bouts with sickness and automotive malfunctions in the middle of the Sahara.

Mark Strage

Cape To Cairo: Rape Of A Continent by Mark Strage (1973). "In 1870 nine-tenths of Africa still belonged to Africans. Thirty years later this proportion was reversed. Except for a few undesirable enclaves, the continent had been divided among the powers of Europe. That it could happen so quickly is testament to the white man's enterprise, his skill at organizing resources, his determination in the face of awesome adversity and his greed."

Robert P L Straughan

Jet Safari To Africa by Robert P L Straughan (1973) offers a glimpse of the African continent - Dakar, West Africa, South Africa, Rhodesia, Zambia, Tanzania and Kenya.

Brian Stutchbury

Flying, Farming And Fencing: A Memoir Of A Kenya Life by Brian Stutchbury (2016) is the author's life story mostly in Africa when his father became secretary of the Muthaiga Club. He served as a pilot the RAF during World War II and when the war was over joined Ferguson tractors based in Nairobi. He then married and spent 10 years farming near Mount Elgon.After periods in Rhodesia, UAE and England, Stutchbury returned to Kenya to run a business in electric fencing solutions.

Hilary Sunman

A Very Different Land: Memories Of Empire From The Farmlands Of Kenya by Hilary Sunman (2014) is an account of the day-to-day experience of 'colonial service' and its challenges together with author's family story. The book concentrates on the author's father, William Owen Sunman (1908 - 1971) and his work as an agricultural officer in Kenya. The book examines the realities of life in Kenya for the wives and children of colonial officers, as well as for the officers themselves during the years after World War II, the move to independence and decolonisation and the early Mau Mau period.

H E Symons

Humfrey Ewan Symons (1899 - 1940) was a British motoring journalist who made 3 motor expeditions across Africa. During WW2 he served as a flight lieutenant in the RAF and was killed aboard the SS Abukir which was torpedoed and sunk while rescuing evacuees from Ostend in May 1940.

Two Roads To Africa by H E Symons (1939) is about the first attempt, in 1939, at driving non-stop across Africa from London to Cape Town. Humfrey Symons and his friend, Bertie Browning (Herbert Brooks Browning (1884 - 1959), borrowed a Wolseley 18/85 car and completed the run in 31 days and 22 hours despite crashing through the railings of a bridge in the Congo. The waterlogged car was retrieved, fixed up, and went on to claim the first world record. This book also includes Symons' 2 other car expeditions across Africa, one of which was in a Rolls-Royce.

P Amaury Talbot

Percy Amaury Talbot (1877 - 1945) was a British anthropologist, botanist and researcher as well as a serving colonial district officer in Nigeria.

In The Shadow Of The Bush by P Amaury Talbot (1912) recounts his travels, with his wife Dorothy Amaury Talbot (1871 - 1916), in southern Nigeria and the Cameroons to study the Ekoi people as well as the natural history of the area. Included are details about religion, position of women, birth customs, witchcraft, funeral ceremonies, war, government, folklore and more. Free eBook
For more anthropological books on Nigeria by Percy Amaury Talbot

Bayard Taylor

Bayard Taylor (1825 - 1878) was an American poet, diplomat and prolific travel author.

Journey To Central Africa: Or, Life And Landscapes From Egypt To The Negro Kingdoms Of The White Nile by Bayard Taylor (1854) records the author's travels in Egypt, Ethiopia and the Sudan during 1851 and early 1852. The book is filled with fascinating details of locales and peoples. Several years before the source of the White Nile had been established, Taylor travelled well south of Khartoum, as reflected in his account and its accompanying map. His objective, however, was to collect experiences rather than to help unravel what Harry Johnston called "the greatest geographical secret after the discovery of America". Free eBook

Orla B Taylor

Orla Benedict Taylor (1865 - 1945) was a Detroit lawyer and banker who travelled extensively in Europe and Africa after retiring.

Wandering in Africa: East And South Africa And The Sahara Desert by Orla B Taylor (1931) is the account of his African safari which he took with his wife, Dorothea, referred to as his "constant companion".

George Thompson

George Thompson (1796 - 1889) was a Cape Town merchant who resided in South Africa for many years and travelled throughout the greater part of the Cape Colony and a considerable part of Bechuanaland. In 1823 and 1824 he proceeded to the Orange River and Bechuanaland and his account of these regions is recognized as the most important description of this part of the continent published in the early part of the nineteenth century.

Travels And Adventures In Southern Africa: Comprising A View Of The Present State Of The Cape Colony With Observations On The Progress And Prospects Of British Emigrants by George Thompson (1827) Vol I Free eBook Vol II Free eBook

David Thornycroft

Nigel And Corona: A Story Of Adventure, Sport, Wilderness And War From England To Africa by David Thornycroft (2009) is a vivid portrait of Nigel and Corona Thornycroft, born into privileged English backgrounds, who, following the Second World War, emigrated to pioneer a tobacco, cattle and game farm in Southern Rhodesia. The book is filled with stories, anecdotes and tales of spearfishing in the Zambezi valley, humorous and deadly adventures with Googly the hippo and a vengeful buffalo, discovering important archaeological remains and San rock paintings.

Nigel Thornycroft

Fowler's Moon by Nigel Thornycroft (1955) is a delightful book on wildfowling written and smuggled out by the author while he was in a POW camp, using an illegal pencil and scraps of toilet paper. 'Fowlers Moon' was originally published in 1955 and re-published in 2010 - was the book which established Nigel Thornycroft as an icon of English coastal wildfowlers.

David Thornycroft & Nigel Thornycroft

Fowler's Moon & Nigel And Corona by David Thornycroft & Nigel Thornycroft (2010) is a limited edition of the two volumes by the Thornycrofts together in one slip-case. 'Fowler's Moon'- a delightful and nostalgic book on wildfowling written. 'Nigel & Corona - A Story Of Adventure, Sport, Wilderness & War From England To Africa' - A family biography, recording the lives of Nigel and Corona Thornycroft which was initially put together by Corona, from Nigel's letters and war diaries, her own unpublished memoirs, her sister Rose's diary and memories and contributions of family and friends. Family members, Verity Thornycroft (in South Africa) and David Thornycroft (in Wales) edited and privately published this in a very limited edition, for members of the family. It includes 70 wildlife sketches from Corona's game book and 60 black and white photographs. The books make a handsome limited edition set, the two leather-backed volumes presented together in a cloth slip-case.

J K R Thorp

Sir John Kingsmill Robert Thorp (1912 - 1961) was an Irish-born cadet in the Colonial Administrative Service when he arrived in Kenya in 1935. He went on to become the District Officer in the Northern Frontier Province, then in Marsabit when it was in the front line of World WarII. He later became an administrator in St Lucia, followed by his appointment as Governor of the Seychelles in 1958, where he died while trying to save his son from drowning.

The Glittering Lake: Memoir Of A District Officer In Kenya by J K R Thorp (2019) is about the day-to-day life of a District Officer in the Northern Frontier Province of Kenya from 1937 to 1943. The author records with humour and insight, the difficult physical conditions and human problems encountered amongst the Turkana, Rendille, Boran, Gelubba (Merille) and other tribes. He was first based on the western side of Lake Rudolph, now Lake Turkana, where he was one of only four Europeans in a desolate, arid area of about 77000 square kilometres. He later transferred to Marsabit, east of the lake, during the early years of World War II when Kenya was threatened with invasion by the Italians from Abyssinia, now Ethiopia.

Harold William Tilman

Harold William Tilman CBE, DSO, MC and Bar (1898 - 1977) was an English mountaineer and explorer, renowned for his Himalayan climbs and sailing voyages.

Snow On The Equator by Harold William Tilman (1937). The author, after surviving in the Great War, found himself as a soldier-settler establishing a farm in Kenya. He later climbed Kilimanjaro, Mt. Kenya and Ruwenzori in the early 1930s. He finished off his 14 years in Africa by cycling from Kenya to Uganda, then to Stanleyville in the Belgian Congo, thence to Bangassa and Bangui in French Equatorial Africa and via the Cameroons, to the Atlantic Coast and a boat back to England. A great read!

Derek Townsend

Safari: East Africa And Its National Parks by Derek Townsend (1973)

Wild Africa's Silent Call by Derek Townsend (1969) 'Here, after months of travel and research, is a powerful and thrilling story: Encounters with big game, intriguing animal observations, among spear carrying warriors, the facts behind Zanzibars revolution.'

A J N Tremearne

Major Arthur John Newman Tremearne (1877 - 1915) was born in Melbourne and served as an officer in the British army. He was an African ethnologist and credited with the invention of a head-measuring gadget.

The Tailed Head-Hunters Of Nigeria by A J N Tremearne (1912) is an account of his 7 years experiences in the northern Nigerian pagan belt with a description of the manners, habits and customs of the native tribes. Free eBook

The Ban Of The Bori: Demons And Demon Dancing In West And North Africa by A J N Tremearne (1914) is a study of popular religion and folklore in North Africa, particularly the regions around Tunis and Tripoli in the pre-First World War period. Free eBook

Hausa Superstitions And Customs: An Introduction To The Folk-lore And The Folk by A J N Tremearne (1913) Free eBook

Some Austral-African Notes And Anecdotes by A J N Tremearne (1913). The first three chapters deal with the Boer War and in particular the Australian contingents. The remainder of the book is about the author's experiences in West Africa.

Sir Frederick Treves

Sir Frederick Treves (1853 - 1923) was a prominent British surgeon and friend of Joseph Merrick, 'the Elephant Man'.

Uganda For A Holiday by Sir Frederick Treves (1910) chronicles his tourist travels throughout Uganda, camping in the Great Rift Valley and one of the first accounts of a circumnavigation of Victoria Nyanza. Free eBook

Major Tudor G Trevor

Tudor Gruffydd Trevor (1865 - 1958) was a Welsh-born South African geologist and mining inspector for the Pretoria District of South Africa. A rare nickel iron oxide mineral was first found near Barbeton, which was subsequently named Trevorite after him.

Forty Years In Africa by Tudor G Trevor (1932) are the highly observant tales of the author's forty years in Africa.

Owen Tweedy

Owen Meredith Tweedy (1888 - 1960) served in the British army in the Middle East during World War I. After the war, he became an official in the British administration in Cairo. In 1924, he became a freelance journalism, specializing in Middle Eastern affairs.

By Way Of The Sahara: The African Odyssey Of Three Men And A Grocer's Van by Owen Tweedy (1930) is the account of an adventurous journey from the Nile to the Niger and across the Sahara. It includes descriptions of the native people encountered in remote villages throughout the Belgian Congo, French Equatoria, the Lake Chad region, Northern Nigeria, the French Niger Province, and the Sahara and Algeria. He travelled across Africa with his friend, Captain Richard Crofton and a Swahili cook in a 10 cwt lorry which was a grocer's van.

Walter Tyndale

Walter Frederick Roope Tyndale (1855 – 1943) was a British watercolourist of landscapes, architecture and street scenes, book illustrator and travel writer. He spent much time travelling Italy, Egypt, the Middle East and Japan, painting landscapes, street scenes and architecture.

Below The Cataracts by Walter Tyndale (1907) is an account of his study and work in the Nile Valley. He painted the great Egyptian monuments to help others appreciate the wonder and mystery of the ancient civilisation and the picturesque life of modern (at the time) Egypt. Free eBook

Henry Francis Varian

Henry Francis Varian (1876 - 1924) was a pioneer of the African railways. He spent 50 years on railway construction projects in Mozambique, Rhodesia, Angola and in East Africa.

Some African Milestones by Henry Francis Varian (1953) is a personal description of day-to-day business of building railways. It is a very readable tale of adventure and epic achievement. The foreword is by Ewart Grogan. Free eBook

John Varty

Nine Lives: Memoirs Of A Maverick Conservationist by John Varty (2010) is the tale of of the author's progression from hunter to filmmaker to conservationist. Varty narrates the adventures, trials, mishaps and triumphs of his extraordinary life, from hunting lions at the age of twelve and teaching the orphaned lion cub Shingalana how to hunt for food, to spending last moments with the badly mauled female leopard, whom he had been following and filming for years. He reveals the secrets behind his close relationships with certain big cats and invokes the terror of his own narrow escapes from death, including a dangerous encounter with crocodiles and a near-fatal helicopter crash.

Iris Vaughan

Iris Emily Henrietta Niland (nee Vaughan) (1890 - 1977) started writing as a young girl during the time of the Anglo-Boer War, in the Eastern Cape. Because she was very outspoken and often embarrassed her magistrate father, he gave her a diary so that she could write her thoughts down instead of speaking them. Later she also wrote novels, but it is her diary that is best known today.

The Diary Of Iris Vaughan by Iris Vaughan (1958) is a South African classic - the true diary of a young girl between the ages of about eight and twelve years at the beginning of the twentieth century. It is unintentionally hilarious and retains all the spelling errors of the original. Iris's father was a magistrate stationed in various small towns in the Eastern Cape and the diary gives an enchanting view of small-town life in the Cape Colony through the eyes of a perceptive young girl.

These Were My Yesterdays by Iris Vaughan (1966) is the author's autobiography. It is the story of South Africa and Rhodesia in the times not so long ago when life was not quite so hurried as it is today.

Robert Vavra

A Tent With A View: An intimate African Experience by Robert Vavra (1991) is the account of the author's experience when he set up a tent in Maasai country and the Kenyan highlands. For several weeks he lived alone with African wildlife and native people.

Remembering Africa by Robert Vavra (2011) subtitled...'At His Campfire With...Jane Goodall, Peter Beard, Peter Matthiessen, George Schaller, Patric Hemingway, Bunny Allen, Martha Gellhorn, Karen Blixen and over 20 other further voices in the African Darkness'. The book views the African continent through the eyes of 33 explorers, adventurers, rogues, raconteurs, literary giants, scientists, and historical figures.

Bernard Venables

Bernard Venables (1907 - 2001) was a British angler, artist and writer. He travelled the world relating his angling experiences on TV and in many books.

Coming Down The Zambezi by Bernard Venables (1974) is an account of the author's 1966 trip on behalf of the Zambian government to explore tourism possibilities. His expedition took him down the Zambezi from the border of Angola and Congo, through Zambia, along Rhodesia's northern border, Lake Kariba and ending at Feira on the frontier with Mozambique. He makes sharp observations of the countryside and people, shooting for the pot and quite a bit of fishing along the way.

Al J Venter

Gunship Ace: The Wars Of Neall Ellis, Helicopter Pilot And Mercenary by Al J Venter (2011) is about a former South African Air Force pilot who saw action throughout the region from the 1970s. Neall Ellis is the best-known mercenary combat aviator alive. Apart from flying Alouette helicopter gunships in Angola, he has fought in the Balkan War, flew Mi-8s for Executive Outcomes, and thereafter an Mi-8 for Colonel Tim Spicer in Sierra Leone. For the past two years, as a civilian contractor, Ellis has been flying helicopter support missions in Afghanistan, where, he reckons, he has had more close shaves than in his entire previous four-decade career.

Michael Vickers

Ivory: An International History And Illustrated Survey With A Guide For Collectors by Michael Vickers (1987) showcases the production of ivory wares from a full spectrum of countries through the ages. There is a focus on the rarity of ivory and the resulting social and political implications of its circulation. With a large array of contributors, this survey covers ivory production in the earliest civilizations, Rome and Eastern Europe, Africa, the far and near East, North and South America through to contemporary carvers. Further, there is attention paid to the collecting and care of ivory items.

George Waddington & Rev Barnard Hanbury

George Waddington (1793 - 1869) was an English traveller, church historian and ordained vicar. He was responsible for the authorship and for the seventeen drawings the book describing a journey from Wadi Halfa to Meroe and back.

Rev Barnard Hanbury (1793 – 1833) originally planned the journey to Egypt. It was after meeting Waddington in Venice (who was en route to Greece) that Waddington decided to go with Hanbury to Egypt.

Journal Of A Visit To Some Parts Of Ethiopia by George Waddington & Rev Barnard Hanbury (1822) the authors decided to embark on an antiquarian tour of Egypt and Nubia. They were given permission to travel into Upper Egypt by the Governor. They were dressed as Turks and accompanied by an Irishman, James H Curtin as interpreter, two Maltese servants and a setter dog named Anubis. They ascended the Nile as far as Meroe. Whilst there they encountered the American traveller George English, and at Wadi Haifa met the French mineralogist Frederic Cailliaud. Free eBook

H B F Walker

Doctor Henry Francis Bell Walker (1876 - 1948) was a British medical doctor, who emigrated to Bedford in the Cape Province where he served as a GP until 1931. During the South West African campaign of 1915 he served with the SAMC and recorded his experiences in this book. In 1920 he bought some land and became a citrus tree farmer while still practising medicine. Still a very fit man at the age of 65, he served with the SAMC in Natal during World War II, becoming a physician specialist at the military hospital in Durban.

A Doctor's Diary in Damaraland by H B F Walker (1917) records Dr Walker's experiences serving with the Mounted Brigade Field Ambulance during the campaign in South West Africa. Free eBook

John Frederick Walker

A Certain Curve Of Horn: The Hundred-Year Quest For The Giant Sable Antelope Of Angola by John Frederick Walker (2004) tells the story of one of the most revered and endangered of the regal beasts of Africa - the giant sable antelope of Angola, a majestic, coal-black quadruped with breathtaking curved horns more than five feet long. It is an enthralling and tragic tale of exploration and adventure, politics and war, the brutal realities of life in Africa today, and the bitter choices of conflicting conservation strategies. 'A Certain Curve of Horn' traces the sable's emergence as a highly sought-after natural history prize before the First World War and follows its struggle to survive in a war zone fought over by the troops of half a dozen nations and its transformation into a political symbol and conservation icon. As he follows the trail of this mysterious animal, Walker interweaves the stories of the adventurers, scientists, and warriors who have come under the thrall of the beast, and how their actions would shape the fate of the giant sable antelope and the history of the war-torn nation that is its only home. Kindle Version

Ivory's Ghosts: The White Gold Of History And The Fate Of Elephants by John Frederick Walker (2009) tells the astonishing story of the human lust for ivory and its cataclysmic implications for elephants. Kindle Version

David Webster

The Shimmering Heat: Memories Of A Bush Doctor In East Africa by David Webster (2007) is the author's life in Kenya. He spent his childhood at Marsabit and worked as a doctor in the remote mission hoospital at Amudat in Uganda, then later at the government district hospital at Marsabit.

Mishkid: A Kenyan Childhood by David Webster (2011) describes what it was like to grow up as a missionary child - 
a mishkid, as they were known. Much of his childhood was spent in the remote Northern Frontier District, on a mountain, Marsabit, surrounded by desert. With primal forest at the back door, elephants in the garden by night and baboons by day, it was an unusual upbringing shared with his African friends.

The Pulse Of The Countryside by David Webster (2016) after growing up in Kenya and working as a doctor, he returned to England and spent thirty years as a rural GP.

Leo Weinthal

Leo Weinthal (1865 - 1930) was editor in chief of the Pretoria Press, and, along with Sir Roderick Jones, served as Reuters' chief correspondent in the Transvaal at the time of the outbreak of the Boer War, their impartial coverage doing much to enhance the reputation of the agency, Weinthal produced this encyclopaedic work as a belated but substantial tribute to Rhodes's idea.

The Story of the Cape to Cairo Railway And River Route, From 1887 To 1922 by Leo Weinthal (1923) is a lavish 5 volume tribute to one of the most glorious failures of the empire, the project conceived by Cecil Rhodes as 'The Iron Spine and Ribs of Africa'. Weinthal recruited every possible person with a connection to Rhodes and to colonial Africa, every likely expert on the continent, and every amenable viceroy, sirdar and colonial governor. Prominent contributors were Sir Percy Fitzgerald on Cecil Rhodes and Dr Jameson, Sir Harry Johnston on the native languages along the route, Captain Selous on big game and Flinders Petrie on "The Trail of the Ancients on the Route". There is also an extract from Churchill's 'My African Journey', accompanied by a portrait.

Charles Weston

African Adventure by Charles Weston (1960) is a privately published account of the author's 24 day photographic (no hunting) safari through Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

W W Wheeler

William Webb Wheeler (1845 - 1925) was born in Ohio and worked his way up to become president of the Wheeler-Motter Mercantile Company in St Joseph, Missouri.

Our Holiday In Africa by W W Wheeler (1912) is a travel book about the author and his wife's tour of Africa, from Egypt to Cape Town and everywhere in between. Though Mr & Mrs Wheeler are rather disdainful of hunting, the book is littered with big game hunting anecdotes that they heard on their journey. The book is full of great photographs of Africa in 1912. Free eBook

A C White

The Call Of The Bushveld by A C White (1949) are personal recollections of hunting and wildlife in the Transvaal lowveld.

Captain Arthur 'Sikereri' Whitfield

I'd Do It Again by Arthur 'Sikereri' Whitfield (1954) is a rare book about the author's life in Rhodesia.

Errol Whittall

Errol Gilchrist Whittall (1906 - 1989) was a British settler in Kenya who owned a cattle ranch.

Dimbilil: The Story Of A Kenya Farm by Errol Whittall (1956) is the account of the life of a settler in Kenya who farmed cattle on land he was allocated as a soldier's settlement after World War II.

John Whittingham

Shoe-String Safari: Travels, Adventures And Experiences In Africa by John Whittingham (1978) is a self-published account of the author's trip to East, Central and South Africa.

Colin Wills

Colin Frederick George Wills (1906 - 1965) was an Australian journalist, broadcaster, war correspondent, scriptwriter and travel writer.

White Traveller In Black Africa by Colin Wills (1951) is an account of a journey made through Nigeria, Gold Coast, Sierra Leone and Gambia.

Who Killed Kenya? by Colin Wills (1953). The author's observations about Kenya's past and the events leading up to the Mau Mau rising.

Lloyd L E Wilmot

Embers Of A Campfire: Pioneering Adventures In The Wilds Of Botswana by Lloyd L E Wilmot (2018) is about the author's escapades and other exploits as one of Botswana's oldest professional guides. It includes episodes of being trapped in a cave with a black mamba, pinned down by an elephant bull, charged by a buffalo at night, attacked twice on the same day by crocodiles and sitting with lions at kills at night. The author is related to Eric Cronje Wilmot. Kindle version only.

James C Wilson

In 1927 James C Wilson (1901- 1995) and his friend, Francis Flood left their homes in Nebraska to ride their motorcycles and sidecars across Africa from Lagos, Nigeria to the Red Sea.

Three Wheeling Through Africa: Two Adventurers Cross The So-Called Dark Continent North of Lake Chad On Motorcycles & Sidecars by James C Wilson (1936) is a delightful and very readable account of motorcycle travel from Lagos on the West Coast, up into the desert at Kano, east across what is now Chad and the Sudan to the Red Sea at Eritrea. They packed every concievable spare part imaginable, plus cameras & a banjo on their Triumph 5HP 3 speed motorcycles with sidecars .

William Winstanley

A Visit To Abyssinia: An Account Of Travel In Modern Ethiopia by William Winstanley (1881) 2 Volumes. The author's account of travel in Abyssinia in 1880 with observations on Emperor Yohannes IV and his court, churches, markets and customs. Free eBook Vol I Free eBook Vol II

Michael Wood

After training as a surgeon in England, Michael Wood (1918 - 1987) moved to Kenya with his wife, Susan Wood and family in 1946. He spent the rest of his life living and working as a physician in Kenya and Tanzania until his death in the 1980s. He learned to fly in Kenya and was a founder of the Amref Flying Doctor Service, an organization that still provides medical care to people living in isolated areas of east Africa. Michael Wood received many awards for his humanitarian work which included a knighthood.

No Turning Back by Michael Wood (2001) is the author's extraordinary life story as a medic in Kenya. He soon found he was regularly being called to emergencies in remote areas and often had to charter flights to get to these places. When the number of these emergencies escalated and became a challenge, Michael Wood learnt to fly and with some colleagues, he developed the idea of AMREF ( African Medical and Research Foundation) and its Flying Doctors Service. After much fund-raising, AMREF was founded in 1957 and continues its work to this day.

Go The Extra Mile: The Adventures And Reflections Of A Flying Doctor by Michael Wood (1978) is a fascinating account of the author's experiences as a general surgeon and pilot, and the creation of the Flying Doctor Service in East Africa.

Susan Wood

A Fly In Amber by Susan Wood (1964) is an account of how the author and her husband, Michael Wood developed the Flying Doctor Service in Kenya. They then developed the idea of a flying specialist service for reconstructive surgery in East and Central Africa and hospitals on wheels.

Leslie Woodhead

James Leslie John Woodhead is an award-winning British documentary filmmaker. He made several films about the Mursi, a nomadic cattle herding people in South West Ethiopia.

A Boxful Of Spirits: Adventures Of A Film-Maker In Africa by Leslie Woodhead (1987) is an account of making a series of films about the Mursi people living in the lower the Omo Valley of south-western Ethiopia.

C Brooke Worth

Charles Brooke Worth (1908 – 1984) was an American naturalist and virology professor.

Mosquito Safari: A Naturalist In Southern Africa by C Brooke Worth (1971) is about an entomologist who for two years worked for an Arbovirus Research Unit doing lab and field work in South Africa, Portuguese East Africa and Uganda. The project was to investigate the existence, characteristics and range of arthropod-borne viruses. His extracurricular explorations lead to interesting excursions in swamps and forests and even onto a golf course, with observations of birds, reptiles, crabs and insect life.

Richard Wyndham

Guy Richard Charles Wyndham (1896 – 1948) was a British amateur artist who decided to visit an old school friend who was a government employee in the southern region of the Sudan in the 1930s. Prior to this, he served in the First World War, where he was wounded. He gained the rank of Captain in the King's Royal Rifle Corps. He was killed in Jerusalem during the Arab/Israeli conflict when working as a Sunday Times war correspondent.

The Gentle Savage: A Sudanese Journey In The Province Of Bahr-el-Ghazal, Commonly Called "The Bog" by Richard Wyndham (1936) is an account the author's journey to the swamps of the Bahr-el-Gazahel district of the Sudan. While at times the author is frequently preoccupied on how he could get his hands on European liquor or food, he does provide some insights into the Dinka, Zande and Bongo tribes in the area. Free eBook

Captain John Yardley

John Henry Reginald Yardley, DSO (1881 - 1938) served as a captain in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, Special Reserve.

Parergon: Or Eddies In Equatoria by Captain John Yardley (1931) is an account of the author's experiences in what he describes as one of the many side-shows connected with the First World War. 1917 found him on his way to Khartoum, and then southwards. It includes a vivid description of the campaign against the Turkana and Abyssinian raiders. He writes..."Parergon is primarily an eye-witness's story of that adventurous and arduous, though small-scale, campaign in Equatorial Africa; but I believe that it is also not without importance in the present fight against slavery." The word 'parergon' means or refers to a piece of work that is supplementary to or a by-product of a larger work.

John Young

Cheating Death by John Young (1937) are the autobiographical reminiscences and yarns by 'adventurer' John Young, mainly set in the Kenya of the mid-1920s where he worked up-country. Evokes something of the feel and atmosphere of the colony at this time even if the 'adventures' have something of the 'Boys' Own' feel to them.

Francis E Younghusband

Lieutenant Colonel Sir Francis Edward Younghusband (1863 - 1942) was a British Army officer, explorer and writer. He is remembered chiefly for his travels in the Far East and Central Asia, especially the 1904 British expedition to Tibet, which he led, during which a massacre of Tibetans occurred.

South Africa Of Today by Francis E Younghusband (1898) was written when he was a special correspondent for 'The Times' newspaper and visited South Africa in 1896. It is a fascinating look at the politics and upheaval in South Africa at the end of the nineteenth century, the time leading up to the Boer War and wild days of prospecting for gold and diamonds by South Africa's early settlers.