How I Found Livingstone (The American journalists) [Hardcover]

Henry M. Stanley (Author)

Book Description

Series: The American journalists | Publication Date: June 1970

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IT. ZANZIBAR. On the morning of the 6th January, 1871, we were sailing through the channel that separates the fruitful island of Zanzibar from Africa. The high lands of the continent loomed like a lengthening shadow in the grey of dawn. The island lay on our left, distant but a mile, coming out of its shroud of foggy folds bit by bit as the day advanced, until it finally rose clearly into view, as lair in appearance as the fairest of the gems of creation, It appeared low, but not flat; there were gentle elevations cropping hither and yon above the languid but graceful tops of the cocoa-trees that lined the margin of the island, and there were depressions visible at agreeable intervals, to indicate where a cool gloom might be found by those who sought relief from a hot sun. With the exception of the thin line of sand, over which the sap-green water rolled itself with a constant murmur and moan, the island seemed buried under one deep stratum of verdure. The noble bosom of the strait bore several dhows speeding in and out of the bay of Zanzibar with bellying sails. Towards the south, above the sea line of the horizon, there appeared the naked masts of several largo ehips, and to the east of these a dense mass of white, flat- topped houses. This was Zanzibar, the capital of theisland;—wiiich soon resolved itself inta a pretty largo and compact city, with all the characteristics of Arab architecture. Above some of the largest houses lining the bay front of the city streamed the blood-red banner of the Sultan, Seyd Burghash, and the flags of the American, English, North German Confederation, and French Consulates. In the harbor were thirteen large ships, four Zanzibar men-of-war, one English man.of.war— the ' Nymphe,' two American, one French, one Portuguese, two Engli...

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 736 pages
• Publisher: Ayer Co Pub (June 1970)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0405016980
• ISBN-13: 978-0405016981
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,110,660 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very nice edition, August 12, 2008

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Autodidact - See all my reviews

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This review is from: How I Found Livingstone (Adventure Classics) (Hardcover)

"How I Found Livingstone" is the first person account of journalist Henry Stanley who was assigned to go find Livingstone, who had been missing for two years in Central Africa and was presumed by some to be dead. It's an interesting read, not just for the story that Stanley thinks he is telling about Central Africa, but for the implicit story of Stanley himself, including his own attitudes. It's enough to make you want to build a time machine so you can go back in time and smack him. And of course Stanley is telling tall tales for his audience too, as he made his living as a penny-a-liner. Should be read in conjunction with a good work of history to put this self-absorbed sadist into context.

The five stars are for the edition, which is hard cover with color illustrations and maps as well as more current photographs of the places that are discussed in Stanley's book. You need a good reason to buy a book edition, because you can download Stanley's entire book for free through Google Books. I started to do this but decided that I wanted a book form rather than 800 printer pages, and I think I got my money's worth.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A bit verbose; problems with Kindle formatting, January 3, 2010

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PBF - See all my reviews

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This review is from: How I Found Livingstone [Illustrated] (Kindle Edition)

Given the era in which it was written, the language is a bit overblown but not intolerably so. However, the formatting is a continual challenge. The tale is interesting but be prepared to adjust the font size every couple of chapters.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Compact Edition, February 9, 2009

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David Adams (Minnesota) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How I Found Livingstone (Adventure Classics) (Hardcover)

Just a note: This IS a very nice compact edition. Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.8 x 1.6 inches. Don't worry about the font size, as it is large enough to read easily. The pictures are quite well done, including engravings from Stanley's original edition and color prints and maps. The margins are one-half inch, so if you are one to write notes, this will be a little cramped for you. This is a straight-forward tale that reads like the adventure story it is.