Europe in Africa in the Nineteenth Century by Latimer, 1895, First Edition

Binding Details:  Publisher’s original  three-quarter morocco leather binding over patterned boards with elaborate ribbed gilt decorated spine, gilt ruling to the front and rear covers, patterned endpapers that match the boards, and gold gilted top page ends. A binding stamp appears on the bottom of the first free endpaper, “Bound by binder for A.C. McClurg and Co.”

Measures approximately 8.25” x 5.75” with 451 pages which includes an introduction, table of contents, list of illustrations, fold-out map as well as 2 other maps, a postscript, and an index.

Book Details:  This is a first edition of “Europe in Africa in the Nineteenth Century published by A.C. McClurg and Co. in 1895 that features 22 full page illustrations including a frontispiece of David Livingston that are all protected by tissue guards and 3 maps including a fold-out map of the Political Divisions in Africa.

From the publisher, “Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer’s Europe in Africa in the Nineteenth Century is a comprehensive study of European imperialism and the history of colonization on the African continent, which had crucial impacts not only on diplomacy during the 19th century but the two World Wars fought in the first half of the 20th century. As Latimer noted at the beginning: ““Europe in Africa in the Nineteenth Century” has been a vast subject to be crowded into the limits which I have allowed myself in this series. If I am told by my critics that my book is deficient in historical perspective, I can only reply: “You are right; but my aim has been to tell only what interested myself, and what I hoped might be interesting to other people. I therefore have put many persons, events, and other matters into the foreground, which, if I aimed to be an historian, I ought to have relegated to a less prominent position.” Almost every chapter of the book forms a narrative by itself. It was nearly as hard to write as would be a history of the United States with no reference to our General Government. The chapters on Uganda, South Africa, and the French in Central Africa, were especially bewildering; but I have had good material, and only hope I may have succeeded in making clear what seemed a Dark Forest in history before it had been penetrated and explored.”

Condition Report:  The binding is in Near FINE condition with some minor rubbing to the head of the spine and a rub to a bottom corner tip. Internally complete and clean with some age toning to the page ends.

Photographs of the book and marbled endpapers appear in the photo section of the listing.