The Autobiography of Sir Henry Morton Stanley by Dorothy Stanley first 1909

London: Sampson Low, Marston and Co. Ltd., 1909
 
Large, thick 8vo., blue cloth double-ruled and lettered in gilt to upper board and spine, together with the circular ‘Bula-Matari’ emblem featuring a map of Africa; repeated to spine; upper edge gilt; pp. [vii], vi-xvii, [iv], 4-551, [i, ads]; together with a frontispiece photograph of the author behind mounted tissue-guard, 16 photographs within the text similarly mounted; and several folding plates, including examples of Stanley’s handwriting and a map to rear showing his three African journeys; cloth a little rubbed to edges and tips, slightly creased along the spine, with endpapers lightly toned; the tissue-guards slightly foxed, but the plates themselves remaining clean; the folding map a little creased; a very good example, with contemporary ownership name and date in pencil to the ffep. 
 
First UK edition, which was edited by Stanley’s wife, who chose to omit certain passages featuring salacious details concerning his love life. 
 
Sir Henry Morton Stanley was, among his modest accomplishments of journalist, soldier, politician and author, an explorer, and it is perhaps for this that he was best known. In particular, his exploration of Central Africa, and his quest to find the missionary David Livingstone has left him a lasting legacy. He was knighted in 1897, and served in Parliament from 1895 to 1900. It was towards the end of his life that he began his autobiography "as he indicates, out of a desire to make his nature and character comprehensible to the world which knew him in the day of his fame" The work was left unfinished when he passed away  in 1904, and compiled by his wife for publication. 
 
An unusually superior example.