Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa, by Mungo Park

Mungo Park - Edited with an Introduction by Kate Ferguson Marsters

ISBN 10: 0822325373 / ISBN 13: 9780822325376

Published by Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina, USA and London, 2000

About this Item

407 pages, a republication of Mungo Park's classic account of African travel en route to discovering the River Niger. The Editor is Assistant Professor of English at Gannon University. Some marks on top edge of outside of pages, and a mark along the side edge; very small creasing and wear along edges of bottom cover at front and back - generally, very good and close to VG+.

Seller Inventory # 4414

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa, by Mungo Park
• Publisher: Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina, USA and London
• Publication Date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0822325373
• ISBN 13: 9780822325376
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: Republished
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
• Seller catalogs:
  • AFRICA

About this title

Synopsis

Mungo Park’s Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa has long been regarded as a classic of African travel literature. In fulfilling his mission to find the Niger River and in documenting its potential as an inland waterway for trade, Park was significant in opening Africa to European economic interests. His modest, low-key heroism made it possible for the British public to imagine themselves as a welcomed force in Africa. As a tale of adventure and survival, it has inspired the imaginations of readers since its first publication in 1799 and writers from Wordsworth and Melville to Conrad, Hemingway, and T. Coreghessan Boyle have acknowledged the influence of Park’s narrative on their work.
Unlike the large expeditions that followed him, Park traveled only with native guides or alone. Without much of an idea of where he was going, he relied entirely on local people for food, shelter, and directions throughout his eventful eighteen month journey. While his warm reaction to the people he met made him famous as a sentimental traveler, his chronicle also provides a rare written record of the lives of ordinary people in West Africa before European intervention. His accounts of war, politics, and the spread of Islam, as well as his constant confrontations with slavery as practiced in eighteenth-century West Africa, are as valuable today as they were in 1799. In preparing this new edition, editor Kate Ferguson Marsters presents the complete text and includes reproductions of all the original maps and illustrations.
Park’s narrative serves as a crucial text in relation to scholarship on the history of slavery, colonial enterprise, and nineteenth-century imperialism. The availability of this full edition will give a new generation of readers access to a travel narrative that has inspired other readers and writers over two centuries and will enliven scholarly discussion in many fields.

About the Author

Mungo Park (1771–1805) was a Scottish explorer who, at the age of twenty-four, travelled alone to Africa in search of the Niger River. A decade later, he returned to Africa on an ill-fated second mission, this time sponsored by the British government. Though there were no survivors of this journey, Park and the last few members of his expedition were reported to have met their deaths while attempting to follow the Niger to its end. Kate Ferguson Marsters is Assistant Professor of English at Gannon University.