CATALOGUE FIVE [PDF 3.87mb] - Allsworth Rare Books

ALLSWORTH RARE BOOKS
P.O. Box 134
235 Earls Court Road
London SW5 9FE
United Kingdom
Tel/fax: +44 (0)20-7377-0552
Mobile: +44 (0)7884-054114
E-mail: travel@allsworthbooks.com
Website: www.allsworthbooks.com
Enquiries: Jenny Allsworth
Members: ABA, PBFA and ILAB
Items in this catalogue are available for viewing by appointment at:
23 Bedford Square
Bloomsbury House
London WC1B 3HH
(Nearest tube station: Tottenham Court Road. Or a short walk from the British
Museum).
Bankers: HSBC, 69 Pall Mall, London SW1Y 5EY
Sort code: 40-05-20. Account number: 21401750
IBAN no: GB11MIDL40052021401750
BIC: MIDLGB2107J
VAT no: GB 798 7327 57
Mastercard, Visa & Maestro accepted.
Terms: Prices quoted are in Pounds Sterling. Shipping and insurance are additional.
Photographs and certain ‘non-book’ items may be subject to VAT. EU members: please
quote your VAT/TVA number when ordering. Please make cheques payable to ‘Allsworth
Rare Books’. New customers may be requested to supply trade references. All goods
remain the property of the vendor until payment has been made in full.
© Allsworth Rare Books 2007. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.
Design by Radius, Budleigh Salterton; printed and bound by BAS, Romsey, Hants.
1. [AFRICAN EXPLORER.] NINET, Victor [Paris]. Early Daguerreotype
portrait of the great German explorer, Heinrich Barth, circa 1849. Approx. 6.5 x 8
cm, in the original glass mount (14.2 x 12.2 cm) and wooden backing, unopened.
With the original printed paper label on the reverse. £5750
Heinrich Barth [1821-1865] is widely considered one of the most important explorers of
the 19 th century. Born in Hamburg and educated at the University of Berlin, he travelled
extensively in areas of West and Central Africa previously unexplored by Europeans. In
1857-8, he published the landmark five-volume work, Travels and Discoveries in North and
Central Africa.
‘Barth’s five-year sojourn [1850–55] in the heart of West Africa, during which he covered
10,000 miles of territory, made him the most complete African explorer to date. It may be
hyperbole to state, as one of his admirers has, “in terms of exploration no single man ever
equalled Heinrich Barth”, but he was the first European to enter Yola and describe the
Fulani kingdom of Adamana. He charted the Benue River and disproved the current theory
that it flowed into Lake Chad. He was also the first European to enter deeply into African
culture and the first to bring back scientific results of abiding value. Significantly, too, he
was the first great African explorer to live past forty. He died in Hamburg in 1865, aged
forty-four’ (McLynn, Hearts of darkness: the European exploration of Africa, p. 38).
[see inside front cover for colour illustration]
ALLSWORTH CATALOGUE FIVE