The Real Henry Morton Stanley (Hardback)

Henry Morton Stanley may be best remembered as an explorer, but all his African expeditions began as a newspaper journalist in search of a scoop. The story of how he found Dr Livingstone brought him worldwide fame, but his attempt to repeat the achievement fifteen years later ended in disaster. Despite this, by using his supreme skills in reputation management, he ensured that the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition was hailed as a tremendous success.

On this, his last expedition, he claimed he was coming to the rescue of an amateur scientist known to history as Emin Pasha who, despite his Ottoman name and title, was a German Jew who converted to Islam before losing himself in the unmapped interior of Africa. It was never obvious why England should have been concerned about his fate, but when he became stranded by local wars, Stanley and others saw an opportunity to advance their own special interests in the region.

The expedition was ill-conceived, badly organised and desperately under resourced, but Stanley accepted no responsibility for the rolling catastrophe and shifted blame onto his dead companions. His second in command was murdered and hundreds of porters died from starvation, fevers and cruel beatings. He executed men for desertion and oversaw the slaughter of thousands of native Africans, driving many more from their homes or binding them into slavery.

Few historians have attempted to tackle the subject in the last 100 years and those who have place too much reliance on Stanley’s own best-selling account In Darkest Africa, without understanding it as a narrative which concealed both the violence of his progress and the depth of his involvement with the slave trade. This new book draws upon previously unpublished historical archive material and first hand accounts. It not only throws new light on the progress of the expedition through the forests of central Africa but also explains why it was so important for Stanley hide to the truth about the disaster. He understood better than any other Victorian celebrity how to manage his own public image, using his journalistic skills to cover up terrible atrocities and avoid personal and national scandal.