Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume

Richardson, James, 1806-1851Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.3
Word count
492K words
Chapters
50

Tags

English Originals World History Central Africa ExpeditionHuman GeographyDiscoveryNatural LandscapesAfrican ExplorationTravel NarrativeExpedition Report19th Century ExplorationColonial BackgroundCross-Cultural Encounter

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.Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, VolumeAuthor: Richardson, James, 1806-1851,Language: English, Class: DT: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Africa, Release Date: Jun 9, 2006

Editor's review

This book is James Richardson's travel narrative of a mission to Central Africa in 1850-51, a nineteenth-century document of African exploration and missionary travel, released as a free English ebook by Project Gutenberg. Its value lies in an eyewitness account of the routes, observations, and daily conditions of entering Central Africa, offering primary material for African history, travel literature, and colonial-era documentary research. The narrative carries the limitations and Eurocentric perspective of its time and should be read critically today. It suits as a source supplement for history papers or a comparative reader in travel literature courses, and is convenient for readers interested in African exploration narratives to work through volume by volume.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read the table of contents and first chapter to grasp the itinerary, then proceed section by section along the route
  2. Note the author's geographical descriptions and value judgments as you read, distinguishing fact from stance
  3. Read alongside a modern overview of African history to correct a single perspective

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

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50

FAQ

What period does this book cover? It recounts a mission journey to Central Africa in 1850-51, with the author recording the itinerary, observations, and conditions along the way as an eyewitness, a mid-nineteenth-century African travel narrative.
Do I need historical background to read it? A basic grasp of nineteenth-century African exploration and European expansion makes the text easier to understand. It can be read without background, but consulting a relevant historical overview is recommended to discern the era's biases in the narrative.
Does the ebook include illustrations or maps? The materials do not state that this ebook includes illustrations or maps; the content is mainly textual narrative. For geographical reference, readers may consult modern maps alongside it.

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

Richardson, James, 1806-1851 Author

James Richardson (1806–1851) was a mid-nineteenth-century traveler and explorer of Africa; public information about his life, including his exact dates and nationality, is limited. Five of his works are held in the collection, all belonging to the genre of travel narratives and expedition accounts. His earlier work, Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846, records his experiences in the Sahara; it was followed by the two-volume Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850–51, describing his journey and observations on a mission to Central Africa; and by the two volumes of Travels in Morocco, depicting the land and customs of Morocco. Written mostly in the first person, these works emphasize geography, local customs, and travel details, and remain important primary sources for the study of nineteenth-century European exploration of North and Central Africa, still cited by scholars of African history and travel literature.