The Gorilla Hunters.: A Tale of the Wilds of Africa.

London: T. Nelson and Sons,, 1861. In the scarce original cloth First edition of Ballantyne's adventure in which the three characters from his most successful novel, Coral Island (1858), meet some years later and set off in pursuit of gorillas. The first edition is rare: only four copies are recorded at auction since 1932, none of them in such nice condition; the copy that Sadleir describes was not his own. "Few copies of the first edition appear to have survived, and to find one in the original cloth binding is a rare occurrence. This may well be a measure of the popularity of the tale, the book having been 'read to death' in the first few years of its existence to be finally consigned to the dustbin, dog-eared and tattered" (Quayle). Other copies are recorded in a darker blueish purple cloth. Ballantyne had been inspired by the arrival in England of Paul Du Chaillu, an anthropologist who had observed and studied gorillas in West Africa, characterized the little known animals as "ferocious wild men of the forest" (Quayle, p. 46), and claimed to have been the first white European person to have seen them. Provenance: prize inscription on the front pastedown: "William Cail. The Second Prize of the Upper Fourth Class. 18th June 1863 - William Spencer. 30 West Clayton Street". The recipient was likely William Cail (1849-1925), 14 years old at the time; he grew up to be a rugby pioneer, president of the Rugby Football Union in 1892, and head coach of the British and Irish Lions during the 1910 British Lions tour to South Africa. The prize was awarded by Rev. William Spencer, headmaster of a school at that address in Newcastle upon Tyne. Octavo. Original light reddish purple vertical wave-grain cloth, spine gilt, sides decoratively blocked in blind, front cover with central design and lettering blocked in gilt, yellow endpapers. Wood engraved frontispiece and title, 5 similar plates. Peripheral fading and toning to cloth, spine leaning, spine ends and corners slightly rubbed, superficial split to front inner hinge, but firm, foxing to outer leaves and a couple of internal gatherings, but generally bright and clean: a very good copy. Osborne, p. 322; Quayle 26a; Sadleir, XIX Century Fiction, 110.