'While engaged on this hunt I felt the earth quiver under my feet, and heard a soft big soughing sound, and looking round saw I had dropped in on a hippo banquet...' Told with verve and self-mocking wit, the adventures of doughty female Victorian explorer Mary Kingsley describe stumbling upon five hippos by night, dodging elephants and fighting off a leopard with a stool. Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. Mary Kingsley (1862-1900). Kingsley's work is available in Penguin Classics in Travels in West Africa.

A Little Black Classics Hippo Banquet

Literature & Fiction

KINGSLEY, mary

History & Criticism

Penguin Classic

A remarkable account by a pioneering woman explorer who was described by Rudyard Kipling as 'the bravest woman of all my knowledge'. Until 1893, Mary Kingsley lived the typical life of a single Victorian woman, tending to sick relatives and keeping house for her brother. However, on the death of her parents, she undertook an extraordinary decision: with no prior knowledge of the region, she set out alone to West Africa to pursue her anthropological interests and collect botanical specimens. Her subsequent book, published in 1897, is a testament to understatement and humour - few explorers made less of the hardships and dangers experienced while travelling (including unaccompanied treks through dangerous jungles and encounters with deadly animals). Travels in West Africa would challenge (as well as reinforce) contemporary Victorian prejudices about Africa, and also made invaluable contributions to the fields of botany and anthropology. Above all, however, it has stood the test of time as a gripping, classic travel narrative by a woman whose sense of adventure and fascination with Africa transformed her whole life. This Penguin edition includes a fascinating introduction by Dr Toby Green examining Victorian attitudes to Africa, along with explanatory notes by Lynnette Turner. Mary Kingsley was born in north London in 1862, the daughter of the traveller and physician George Kingsley and his former housekeeper, Mary Bailey. Her education was scant: while her younger brother was sent away to school, she stayed at home. Later she lived in Cambridge, and cared for her bedridden mother. Following the deaths of her parents, Kingsley embarked on a voyage to West Africa in August 1893, with the object of studying native religion and law and collecting zoological specimens. In December 1894, she undertook a second trip to the region, during which she became the first woman to climb West Africa's highest mountain, Mount Cameroon. On returning home eleven months later, she wrote Travels in West Africa, which was published in 1897 and was followed by West African Studies in 1899. Kingsley made one final trip to Africa, enlisting as a volunteer nurse in South Africa during the Boer War. She had only been there for two months when she developed typhoid fever and died, on 3rd June 1900, before being buried at sea in accordance with her wishes. Lynnette Turner is Associate Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Edge Hill University. Toby Green is Lecturer in Lusophone African History and Culture at Kings College London. His book The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa appeared in 2011.

Penguin Classics Travels in West Africa

History

Africa

Accompanying her sister to London, Miss Rebecca Talbot is taken captive by the dashing buccaneer known only as the Raven, and she promises to become his mistress if he will protect Rebecca's sister. Original.

In a Pirate's Arms

Romance

Historical

Topaz

Proud and determined Abigail Palmer joins forces with Nathaniel Howland, a sea captain with a tarnished reputation, as they embark on a perilous voyage into arctic waters and discover a love that will transform both their lives. Original.

Beyond the Sea

No European woman had ventured where Kingsley would venture, and no man either. In defiance of Victorian notions about women's roles, she journeyed through West Africa, climbed mountains, experienced harrowing adventures, dwelled among cannibals, and lived to write one of the most admired books of high adventure of all time. First published in 1897 Appreciation of Mary Kingsley by Evan Connell New maps 280pp

Travels in West Africa

Travel

Specialty Travel

Everyman

This superb autobiographical classic recounts the remarkable journeys undertaken by a sheltered Victorian woman who ventured alone into the territory of known cannibals in order to continue her father's studies in West Africa. She made two journeys to West Africa: the first in 1893 at the age of thirty-one, and the second in 1894-5. First published in 1897, this account was an immediate success.

Travels in West Africa (Everyman's Library)

Classics

Everyman Paperback Classics

In 1893, defying every convention of Victorian womanhood, Mary Kingsley set off alone for West Africa to collect botanical specimens. Unaccompanied except for native guides, she plunged boldly into forbidding jungles, often the first European—and almost always the first white woman—ever to arrive. Undaunted by tales of ferocious cannibals, she made friends with the tribes she met and collected priceless samples of flora and fauna. Along the way she fought off crocodiles with a paddle and hit a leopard over the head with a pot. When she fell into a trap lined with sharp sticks, she was saved by her voluminous crinolines—for she always dressed like a lady. Travels in West Africa is a book as vivid and unforgettable as the extraordinary woman herself. “The charm of West Africa is a painful one: it gives you pleasure when you are out there, but when you are back here it gives you pain by calling you . . . Come back, come back, this is your home.”—Mary Kingsley National Geographic Adventure Classics is a series that celebrates the “100 greatest adventure books of all time,” as compiled by a panel of experts for National Geographic Adventure. These titles have been carefully selected for their adrenaline quotient and their status as classics of the adventure genre.

Travels in West Africa (National Geographic Adventure Classics)

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

National Geographic

Unfortunate Circumstances . . .The Earl of Chatleigh was not a man easily taken in by manipulative misses, but he'd certainly botched things this time! Yet how was he to know that the beautiful young doxy in his bed at the Hart and Hind was of the Quality? Though he suspected he'd just been the victim of a most ingenious bit of connubial chicanery, honor demanded that he wed the chit. Well, he'd give her his name, and that was all she'd receive from him. Except, perhaps, for a few lessons on the more pleasurable obligations of a dutiful wife!Inescapable Conclusions . . .Miss Melissa Selby considered herself a resourceful girl, resourceful enough, at any rate, to escape her cruel stepfather and make her own way in the world. But she was not at all prepared to cope with the handsome lord who appeared in her So she screamed, as any Lady might, and brought witnesses as well as protectors. Not giving a fig for her reputation, she would have happily braved the scandal, but her would-be seducer would have none of that. Well, he'd soon regret the cavalier way he'd trapped her in marriage. She might be forced to live the rest of her days as the wife of an earl . . . but she'd spend her nights alone!

A Gentleman's Desire

Kensington Pub. Corp

When Nicholas St. John returns from sea to assume the family title, he is pleased to learn that his next-door neighbor is none other than the bewitching governess Cassandra Aldrich, his childhood friend. Original.

Scandal's Lady (Zebra Regency Romance)

Dubbed "Miss Bumblebroth" due to her clumsiness during the London season, Chloe Russell unexpectedly finds a match in Lord Michael Lyndon, and as they embark on an arranged marriage, Michael, determined to change Chloe's awkward ways, learns a valuable lesson in acceptance and love. Original.

Marrying Miss Bumblebroth

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