The International League of Antiquarian Booksellers takes note of travel books, rare and extraordinary.
From the piece...
Mungo Park’s second voyage gave rise to a hoax perpetrated by a German publisher who would not wait for official news of this traveller. When nothing had been heard from Park for some time, he commissioned an unknown author to make up his own version of his (Park’s) demise and published it. This book is still often cited as a “true” account, even though in it Park is robbed and killed by natives in a stony desert – just about the very opposite to what actually happened to him.
The 19th century was the century of the scientific traveller and explorer. Cook had made the start by mapping the Pacific, Hedin set foot in Asia for the first time, the poles were being attempted. And then there was Africa, dark, mysterious and just waiting to be colonized and exploited. As always the hoaxers were there first. In 1832 a certain Douville published “Voyages au Congo et dans l’interieur de l’Afrique” in 3 volumes with an atlas. Most of the book was pure fantasy, with a few excerpts from older or unpublished writers thrown in.
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