The most famous account of African exploration, recording three years spent in the wilderness between 1853-1856. 'Livingstone, one of the great characters of the nineteenth century, embodying all the virtues of the Victorian age, is often remembered more for his qualities as a man than for his achievements as an explorer. Born with no social advantages, it was his courage and boldness of conception, his deep religious feelings and his great powers of endurance that carried him through the trials and hardships of a dedicated life and eventually gained him the honour of burial in Westminster Abbey' (Printing and the Mind of Man, 341).

The most famous account of African exploration, recording three years spent in the wilderness between 1853-1856. 'Livingstone, one of the great characters of the nineteenth century, embodying all the virtues of the Victorian age, is often remembered more for his qualities as a man than for his achievements as an explorer. Born with no social advantages, it was his courage and boldness of conception, his deep religious feelings and his great powers of endurance that carried him through the trials and hardships of a dedicated life and eventually gained him the honour of burial in Westminster Abbey' (Printing and the Mind of Man, 341).

This first edition appeared in various issues. Abbey suggested that those with plates 1 and 8 as wood-engravings -- as in this copy -- preceded those in which they were reprinted as tinted lithographs, while Bradlow argued much the reverse. In any case this very attractive copy has them as wood-engravings and is one of the issues that appeared before the addition of a leaf following p. 8 in which Livingstone later expounded on the subject of his family. Renard seem to have called this variant the third issue, but no reliable order of precedence has been established for the 11 issues that have been identified; Bradlow notes that "the only thing that can be said with certainty is that the issue with the extra leaf numbered 8* and 8+ is not the first issue".