Africa Memoir

Hardcover. NY, Harcourt Brace , 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Illustrated with 16 pages of black and white photographs, 338 pages. With wry humor and sharp observation, playwright Pifer elegantly mixes memory and research to reconstruct the world of his South African boyhood from 1933 to 1945. Pifer's father, an idealistic mining engineer in search of challenge and stability during the Depression, found it in Africa, but his earnest American egalitarianism soon put him in conflict with Afrikaner mine overseers, and his career under magnate Sir Ernest Oppenheimer stalled. The author deftly evokes his family--"my mother had the freedom of a disobedient daughter"--and the isolation of the desert town of Oranjemund. The book is even more resonant in its snapshots of mid-century Southern Africa: the still-simmering enmity between Afrikaners and the English; the ripples from Hitler's war in what prior to WW I had been the German territory of South West Africa (currently Namibia). Pifer's knowing account of the travails of servants--"the chasm that exists between white mistress and African maid"--still rings true today. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Boston, John P. Jewett & Co., 1st, 1852, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, original blind stamped cloth with gilt stamped lettering on spine. 479 pages with mild foxing to a few pages. Very good plus, no markings.

Hardcover. New York , Harper and Brothers, 1st US, 1964, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 590 pages plus publisher's ads. Frontispiece portrait of Speke, 2 maps (one folding at rear of book). Rebound in brown cloth, gilt lettering on spine. Marbled edges. Clean and bright.

Hardcover. NY, National Travel Club, reprint, 1930, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, black cloth stamped in gilt. 358 pages. Map endpapers, frontispiece, notes, map, appendices. Introduction by Edward Garnett. Frontispiece of the author on a horse as Sheikh Mohammed El Fasi. Mild fade to spine lettering, otherwise a tight, clean copy.

Hardcover. Boston, Little, Brown & Company, 1st, 1925, Book: Fair, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, maroon cloth with faded gilt lettering. 245 pages, b&w illustrations. Czech writer, Hans Coudenhove writes of a long stay in Nyasaland (now Malawi) and describes the African people, mongooses, monkeys, lions, ants, kites, ravens and snakes. So immersed in African culture is author Coudenhove that he had not slept in a bed, dined with a human, or seen any entertainment in decades of living there. Quoth he: I have not been in a theatre for twenty-eight years.and I have never seen any of the modern dances--'jazz' I think they are called. So this perspective might be considered unsullied by any 'modern' thinking, and it is pure African to the core--a unique perspective on the fauna of the continent Ex-lib with marking and residue to endpapers.

Hardcover. New York, Alfred Knopf, 2nd pr., 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 462 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, tight copy with minor wear to covers and edges.

Hardcover. New York, Alfred Knopf, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 462 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, tight copy with minor wear to covers and edges. A modern classic of travel literature: "Ostensibly a quest for Mokele-mbembe, the Congo dinosaur , this story of travel through the jungles and swamp forests of the northern Congo is Tolstoyan in its depth, scope and range of characters, and as vivid as Nabokov in its image and detail. A portrait of a country, it is alive with natural history: eagles and parrots, hornbills and sunbirds, forest cobras and crocodiles, gorillas and elephants. A search for the meaning of sorcery, the purpose of religion (and a celebration of the comfort and mysteries of science), it is also an adventure told with great narrative force. Of course there is a darker side to the Congo, and that too is recorded here." Kazuo Ishiguro called this a "unique messy masterpiece."

Hardcover. London, Hutchinson, 1st, 1956, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a worn dust jacket, 190 pages, 5 b&w illustrations. A true account of the author's adventures as a young man prospecting for gold in Africa, and the region that he believes is the legendary Ophir, famous in Old Testament times for it's fine gold. Name on inside front cover otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 8th pr., 1928, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, orange cloth with gilt lettering, 294 pages. Illustrated with 66 photographs by the author, the famous explorer Martin Johnson, who later became the noted documentary filmmaker in Africa with his wife, Osa. A story of adventure and exploration in Africa, with much information about the extraordinary wildlife, including elephants, lions, rhinos, and gorillas. Fold-out map in rear. Minor edge wear, slight dust soiling, a bit of pitting to the cloth along spine edge. Inscription on first blank page otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, Julian Messner, 1st, 1956, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn, price-clipped dust jacket. Translated from the French by Katherine Woods. Engaging account of the author's camel trek across the untamed South Fezzen region of the Sahara Desert, encountering exotic vegetation and prehistoric cave paintings along the way. No markings.

Hardcover. NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1st US, 1954, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, decorative red cloth, 370 pages, no dust jacket, Abrahams was born in the slums of Johnannesburg and later moved to England. Autobiography of author's 22 years of struggle before he left South Africa. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise tight and clean copy.

Hardcover. Evanston IL, Northwestern University Press, 1959-1963, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Four hardcover volumes: Vol. 1, East Africa November 1889 to December 1890, 432 pages. Vol. 2, East Africa December 1890 to December 1891, 481 pages. Vol. 3, East Africa January 1892 to August 1892, 454 pages. Vol. 4, Nigeria 1894-5 and 1898, 444 pages. Black-and-white illustrations and maps; Bindings vary: Vols. 1, 3 and 4 are matching green cloth with gilt lettering on spine. Vol. 2 is terra-cotta cloth with a black clorh spine. Previous owner'e signature in 1 and #. Otherwise clean and tight set.

Hardcover. NY, Prentice Hall, 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Describes the author's experiences traveling through Africa, meeting and talking with warriors, activists, and poachers. 334 pages, clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, William Morrow, 1st, 1961, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, light gray boards with a blue cloth spine, 268 pages. The author's passionate concern for Africa and for the human spirit is evident in this portrait of the "First People" of southern Africa, the Bushmen. Van der Post describes his desert travels, the splendid landscape and wildlife, and his encounters with the Bushman, an elusive culture. Drawings by Maurice Wilson. SIGNED BY VAN DER POST on the front fly leaf. No dust jacket, Clean copy.

Softcover. London, September Publishing, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 302 pages. A uniquely vivid and wickedly funny memoir of growing up ambitious, creative and sometimes hungry in Malawi, by the award-winning conceptual artist. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York, American Subscription Publishing House, 1st, 1859, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 358 pages. Black & white illustrations. Title in gilt on spine. Fading to spine, and along top 1" of front cover.

Hardcover. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, First Edition, 1961, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 221 pages. Hardcover. Brown cloth covers with gilt decoration to cover, gilt titles to spine. Full page, full color & bw illustrations throughout. Clean, unmarked text. A nice copy.

Hardcover. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly sunned dust jacket, 233 pages, b&w illustrations. Memoir of the author's experience living in a Botswana village. Glossary and A Note on the Setswana Language at back. Clean copy.

Softcover. Seattle, University of Washington Press, reprint, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 255 pages, b&w photos. A Peace Corps worker sent to the Sakel to establish a fish-farming project, the author lived with a family in a tiny Sengalese village near the Mauretania border. We share her initial feelings of dislocation as she contends not only with a primitive lifestyle, lack of creature comforts, and the overt sexism of the Moslem men she supervises, but also with her burgeoning relationships with the women in the little compound who become as much her family as her relatives in America. In a guileless narrative filled with affection and anger, Lowerre tells of the ill health and bureaucratic failings that beset her; she acknowledges the Pulaar people's love and good humor, and offers an unprettified closeup of daily life in an African village. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, Peter Owen Publishers, 1st UK , 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 379 pages. 8 pages of b&w photographs. Gilt titles on spine. Edge wear to top edge of cover and dust jacket. Otherwise clean, tight copy.