The Lake Regions of Central Africa: A Picture of Exploration.

BURTON, Richard F. (Lord Randolph Spencer Churchill).

Item Number: 96154

London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1860.

First edition of Burton’s account of the Royal Geographical Society expedition with John Hanning Speke in search of the source of the Nile in 1858-59. Octavos, two volumes, bound in full morocco with gilt titles and tooling to the spine, morocco spine labels, gilt compartments, raised gilt bands, double gilt ruled, all edges marbled, marbled endpapers, illustrated with 12 chromoxylographic plates including frontispieces to each volume, folding engraved map of the expedition’s routes between Zanzibar and the Great Lakes in Eastern Africa with partial hand-coloring to volume I, additional wood engravings throughout. Inscribed by Randolph Spencer Churchill on the second free endpaper, “Suirdale, From his affectionate friend Randolph Spencer Churchill Upon his leaving Eton, Election 1864.” Lord Randolph Churchill attended Eton College from January 1863 until July 1865. Winston S. Churchill makes mention of his father’s colleague Suirdale (later Lord Donoughmore) in the ‘Early Years’ chapter of his 1906 biography of his father. Suirdale and Churchill were friends from a young age and later went on to attend Eton together. In very good condition. Rare and desirable with exceptional provenance.

In 1856 British explorers Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke became the first Europeans to journey to the Great Lakes of Africa in search of the source of the Nile River with funding by the Royal Geographical Society. Burton took ill when the expedition reached Lake Tanganyika, and Speke continued with out him. He became the first European to discover Lake Victoria and claimed it to be the Nile's source. Burton refuted this hypothesis and it became a bitter rift between them.