Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa

David LivingstoneProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.0
Word count
1.7M words
Chapters
172

Tags

English Originals Documentary Literature Missionary WorkTravel LiteratureNatural HistoryExpedition NotesSouthern AfricaColonial Era

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa by David LivingstoneAuthor: Livingstone, David, 1813-1873,Language: English, Class: DT: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Africa, Release Date: Feb 11, 2006

Editor's review

This book is a first-hand record of Livingstone's missionary and exploratory travels in southern Africa, valuable on several counts: geographical discovery, ethnographic observation, and Victorian travel writing. Readers can see how nineteenth-century Europeans understood the natural environment, ethnic societies, and trade routes of the African interior, and can also read the author's sustained concern about the slave trade. The narrative is documentary in pace and dense in detail, suited to first-hand material for understanding African colonial and missionary history rather than light entertainment. When reading, keep a map and historical background materials at hand, note the author's observational perspective and period limitations, and maintain a critical distinction between the value of the source material and the stance of the narrative. For readers studying travel literature, imperial history, or cross-cultural contact, this is a public-domain text worth reading slowly.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the preface and chapter titles first to establish the framework of the journey, then read in segments following the route.
  2. Keep a map of southern Africa at hand and mark place names and rivers as you read to reduce difficulty in spatial understanding.
  3. Make marginal notes when encountering ethnographic descriptions, distinguishing observational records from the author's judgments.
  4. Read alongside other African travel literature to compare differences in perspective among authors.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

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FAQ

Is this book suitable for readers without a foundation in African history? It can be read, but extra preparation is needed. The book contains many place names, ethnic groups, and routes without modern annotations. It is advisable first to understand the colonial and trade background of nineteenth-century southern Africa and to read with a map; otherwise, it is easy to get lost in the details. It is better treated as source material than as an introductory general history.
What stance-related issues of the author should readers note? The author was both a missionary and a participant in imperial expansion, and his descriptions of African societies carry period prejudices and a religious framework. When reading, distinguish field observation, personal judgment, and transmitted material, avoid taking the narrative directly as neutral fact, and compare it with later research.
What should be noted about this edition? This edition is an English public-domain electronic text released by Project Gutenberg, convenient for free access and searching, but it usually does not include modern editorial notes, maps, or a scholarly introduction. For research purposes, it is advisable to find an annotated scholarly edition to verify names, place names, and chapter information.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

David Livingstone Author · Scottish · 1813–1873

David Livingstone (1813–1873) was a Scottish medical missionary and explorer sent to Africa by the London Missionary Society. He penetrated deep into the African interior three times, discovered and named Victoria Falls in 1855, and became the first European to cross the African continent from east to west. He advocated ending the slave trade through “Christianity, commerce and civilization,” and his travel and research records combine geographical observation with missionary ambition. Four of his works are held here, including Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa and The Last Journals, which record his final years in Central Africa from 1865; another is a popular account of his Zambesi expedition. Written largely from personal experience in a practical narrative style, these texts remain important sources for nineteenth-century African geography and missionary history and shaped Victorian public imagination of the African interior. He died in 1873 in present-day Zambia and was buried in Westminster Abbey.