Lake Ngami; or, explorations and discoveries during four years’ wanderings in the wilds of Southwestern Africa

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1856. FIRST AMERICAN EDITION. With frontispiece and numerous text illustrations. Original publisher’s cloth front and back covers with gilt designs over later morocco; frontispiece and title slightly loose, interior very good. First American edition (two impressions were published in London the same year). This work recounts two expeditions of southern Africa undertaken by the author between 1850-1854. Many of the areas he explored were almost unknown in Europe at the time, and his narrative is packed with descriptive imagery and sensational events, from lion attacks and swarms of locusts to local legends and witchcraft. “Few, if any, books give so full and complete an account of Namaqualand, Damaraland, and the Ovampo country, and the description of the fauna of these countries is absolutely unequalled” (Mendelssohn).

Andersson (1827-1867) was a Swedish explorer and amateur naturalist best known for his extensive travels of the southern region of Africa.