Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa; by LIVINGSTONE, David - 1857: including a Sketch of Sixteen Years' Residence in the Interior of Africa, and a Journey from the Cape of Good Hope to Loanda on the West Coast; thence across the Continent, down the River Zambezi, to the Eastern Ocean.

London: John Murray,, 1857. Octavo (218 x 140 mm). Attractively bound in recent brown morocco, titles and decoration to spine gilt, boards ruled gilt, marbled endpapers, edges gilt. Folding frontispiece and 22 other plates, illustrations to the text, 3 folding maps, one of them in an end-pocket. Stub of frontispiece torn, with tape repair, tissue repair to fore edge of frontispiece and plate 5, occasional minor spotting to contents. An excellent copy, attractively bound. First edition. The book covers the first of Livingstone's three major expeditions "in which he followed the Zambezi, discovering Victoria Falls in the process, as well as the Shire and Ruyuma rivers, ranging from Angola in the west to Mozambique in the east... During these years he explored vast regions of central Africa, many of which had never been seen by white men before" (PMM). This copy conforms to Bradlow's Variant No. 3: frontispiece, plate 8 and 17 wood-cuts by Whymper, with an extra leaf after p. 8; the ads in this copy are dated November 1, 1857. Bradlaw refrains from citing this as the "third issue", since the precise relationship of the variants unknown - indeed, Bradlaw only retains Gaston Renard's order of issue "not because of a belief in its correctness but merely for convenience", and notes that "the only thing that can be said with certainty is that the issue with the extra leaf numbered 8* and 8+ is not the first issue". The extra leaf following p. 8 covers Livingstone's account of his married life and the upbringing of his children. As to why the extra leaf was inserted, Bradlow remains baffled: "Why did Livingstone decide to have the extra leaf after page 8 inserted? Did he feel that he had neglected his wife by not mentioning her in this way in the first place? All these questions and a host of others will occur to trained bibliographers and it may well be, that, in the future, some indefatigable researcher will find the answers."