(London: Printed for John Murray, 1799 and 1815).

A RARE AND ELUSIVE SET OF THE FIRST EDITION PRINTINGS OF EACH VOLUME AND A VERY HANDSOMELY BOUND COPY OF THIS HIGHLY IMPORTANT AND SEMINAL WORK OF AFRICANA. The African Association of London s previous four expeditions to explore the Niger river had failed by the time they charged Park, a Scotsman, with the commission to explore the Gambia, Senegal, and Niger rivers in 1795. He covered well over 100 miles before he fell ill in 1797 and returned back to England. His unaffected style and natural sense of storytelling in the subsequent publication of his adventures make this one of the most popular accounts of African exploration. He returned to Africa in 1805 to search for the source of the Niger in a canoe, and met great hardships both on the river and with the natives that eventually cost him his own life and the life of his men.
 Until the publication of Park s book in 1799 hardly anything was known of the interior of Africa, apart from the northeast region and coastal area...Park s TRAVELS had an immediate success and was translated into most European languages. It has become a classic of travel literature, and its scientific observations on the botany and meteorology of the region, and on the social and domestic life of the Negroes, have remained of lasting value. Park s career was cut short, but he made the first great practice advance in the opening-up of Central Africa. PMM 253. A rare copy of this milestone Africana.
After the publication of the TRAVELS, Park withdrew to the quiet life of a country physician. He soon became bored with this existence and returned to Africa in 1805. He traveled on the Niger by canoe, but failed to reach the source of the river. He and his companions were killed by natives at Boussa after their canoe foundered on the rapids. Fortunately, Park had earlier sent his journals to Gambia, and they were finally published in 1815. Item #23945

2 volumes. Rare First Edition of each volume. With engraved portrait frontispiece of Park, finely engraved plates and folding maps throughout. 4to, handsomely bound in three-quarter calf over marbled boards, the spines with raised bands bordered with gilt fillet lines, compartments of the spines with handsome gilt-work, decorations and lettering on a red morocco label in one compartment, t.e.g.. xxviii, 372, [xcvii]; cxxx, [1], 219 pp. A very handsome set presented in fine bindings, the text very bright and clean, plates and maps all in good order.