Rhyanon Demery
Head of Sale
Lot 105•
BURTON (RICHARD FRANCIS) First Footsteps in East Africa; or, an Exploration of Harar, FIRST EDITION, WITH "APPENDIX IV", Longman, Green, 1856
3 November 2015, 13:00 GMT
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £2,000 inc. premium
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BURTON (RICHARD FRANCIS)
First Footsteps in East Africa; or, an Exploration of Harar, FIRST EDITION, WITH "APPENDIX IV", 4 chromolithographed plates, 2 engraved maps, with 4-page Appendix IV, p.593/4 snipped at lower margin (see below), without half-title, "prize" binding of decorative gilt-stamped green cloth, g.e., ?later yellow endpapers, refurbished [Penzer, pp.60-63; Spink 16], 8vo, Longman, Green, 1856
Footnotes
FIRST EDITION OF THE AUTHOR'S ACCOUNT OF HIS FIRST AFRICAN EXPEDITION, WITH THE VERY RARE SUPPRESSED APPENDIX IV ON FEMALE CIRCUMCISION. "On his expedition to Harar, Burton discovered that infibulation prevailed among the Somalis, and, following his usual thorough methods, wrote a short account on the subject [for inclusion in First Footsteps]" (Penzer).
The caption for "Appendix IV" (p.591, p.592 blank) is followed by 2 pages of text (pp.593/4) titled in English 'A Brief Description of Certain Peculiar Customs', above a text printed in Latin. Appendix IV was withdrawn by the publisher at the last moment and replaced by the wording "It has been found necessary to omit this Appendix". Our copy has the leaf of Appendix snipped at foot, as do other copies. Those copies with the Appendix we have traced are, in common with ours, in later issue "prize" bindings. It seems probable that instead of being "for Burton's use" (as has previously been suggested, despite the fact that Burton's own surviving copy does not have the Appendix), copies with the Appendix were discarded by the binder at the time of issue, and incongruously bound up as school prize copies at a later date, when the furore surrounding the Appendix had died down.
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