African Exploration · Victorian Education · 1867 Inscription
In Search of the Nile — Bruce’s Travels in Abyssinia, 1849, with a Victorian Manchester School Inscription
Victorian edition of James Bruce’s African travels · Illustrated text · Early manuscript inscription
Catalogue details
Description
James Bruce (1730–1794) travelled in Egypt, Arabia and Ethiopia and published his celebrated account of the region in 1790. His descriptions of the Ethiopian highlands and sources associated with the Blue Nile influenced later British travel literature. Local peoples already knew the region, and earlier European travellers had visited these sources; Bruce should not be described as their first discoverer.
- Dimensions
- Measurements gladly provided on request
- Type
- Illustrated Victorian travel book
- Subject
- James Bruce’s travels in Africa and Abyssinia
- Ownership
- Early manuscript school-associated inscription from Manchester
- Condition
- Please consult the photographs for condition. Additional photographs are available on request.
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Historical context & sources
A Halifax Illustrated Edition, 1849
This compact nineteenth-century retelling was printed and published by William Milner, Cheapside, Halifax, in 1849. It is a later illustrated edition, not the 1790 first edition. An illustrated frontispiece shows a dramatic waterfall and travelling figures; the engraving is lettered “WHIMPER”, an engraved signature that warrants further research rather than an unsupported attribution to every image in the volume.
British Schools, Manchester — 1867
A manuscript inscription on an early leaf records an indistinct personal name followed by an apparent reference to British Schools, Manchester, and the date 1867. The inscription offers tangible evidence of the book’s Victorian history but does not by itself establish that it was formally part of a school library. The inscribed name remains uncertain.
