"OUR LONG-NEGLECTED EL DORADO": BURTON'S TO THE GOLD COAST FOR GOLD, 1883 FIRST EDITION

BURTON, Richard F.; CAMERON, Verney Lovett. To the Gold Coast for Gold. A Personal Narrative. London: Chatto and Windus, 1883. Two volumes. Octavo, early 20th-century full brown crushed morocco with original red cloth front covers and spines bound in, raised bands, gilt-decorated spines, marbled endpapers, top edges gilt. $5000.

First edition, with two large folding hand-tinted maps and color frontispiece, in beautiful full morocco-gilt bindings by Birdsall with the original cloth bound in.

Burton's companion on this six-month search for gold was Commander Verney Lovett Cameron, the first white man to cross central Africa from coast to coast. Encouraged by Burton's report that "there was plenty of gold and the gold mines could be easily worked," a number of mining companies were formed with both Burton and Cameron on their Boards. "The record of a man who could become passionately absorbed in whatever he was engaged in" (Rice, Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton, 455). Penzer, 106.

A few expert repairs to folding map opposite title page of Volume I, wear to one fold of folding map at rear of Volume I. Text clean, full morocco-gilt bindings fine and beautiful.