The Gorilla Hunters.: A tale of the wilds of Africa.

London: T. Nelson and Sons,, 1861. Rare in the original cloth First edition of Ballantyne's adventure in which the three characters from his most successful novel, Coral Island (1858), meet up some years later and set off in pursuit of gorillas. The first edition is rare: only four copies are recorded at auction since 1932, none of them in pristine conditions; the copy that Sadleir describes was not his own. "Few copies of the first edition appear to have survived, and to find one in the original cloth binding is a rare occurrence. This may well be a measure of the popularity of the tale, the book having been 'read to death' in the first few years of its existence to be finally consigned to the dustbin, dog-eared and tattered" (Quayle). Other copies are recorded in a darker bluish purple cloth. Ballantyne had been inspired by the arrival in England of Paul Du Chaillu, an anthropologist who had observed and studied gorillas in West Africa, who characterized the little known animals as "ferocious wild men of the forest" and claimed to have been the first white European person to have seen them. Octavo. Original light reddish purple vertical wave-grain cloth, spine gilt, sides decoratively blocked in blind, front cover with central design and lettering blocked in gilt, yellow endpapers. Frontispiece, extra engraved title, 5 plates. Ownership inscription on front free endpaper obscured. Spine faded and with slight lean, a couple of ink stains to rear board, some pencilled crosses in the text marking a reader's progress, a little very light spotting to early leaves, an excellent copy. Osborne p. 322; Quayle 26a; Sadleir, XIX Century Fiction, 110; not in Wolff.