Customer Reviews

How I Found Livingstone (The American journalists)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"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.

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.

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.