Henry Morton Stanley

It is my misfortune that most of my African facts are based on deadly earnestness, and I am therefore sure you will sympathise with me for the disadvantages under which I labour. Withal however I am most willing to oblige you. My notebooks will be searched for incidents less exciting than those which befell me as a pioneer - so that I may the better please your legions of readers. With best wishes for everything that concerns you during 1899. […]“ A Welsh immigrant to the United States who enlisted in the Confederate Army (he subsequently fought for the Union) and later became a war correspondent, Stanley was sent by the New York Herald in 1868 to accompany British forces fighting against Emperor Theodore of Abyssinia. His scoop about the fall of Magdala brought him immediate recognition and the offer of further Herald assignments, the most famous being his successful search and discovery, three years later, for Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone. Upon his discovery in a remote area of Tanzania in 1871, Stanley famously greeted him with, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” William Henry Rideing wrote for the New York Tribune, the New York Times, the Springfield Republican, the Boston Journal and Harper's Weekly. He also authored 12 works of fiction and non-fiction for both adults and children on subjects including travel, history and adventure. Rideing travelled extensively around Europe to obtain material to write about. From 1881 until his death, Rideing was the Associate Editor of The Youth's Companion magazine (1827–1929). For most of its history, The Youth's Companion was a children’s magazine. In the 1890s, after Rideing was made the Associate Editor, the magazine began to write for both adults and children. The magazine had numerous important contributors such as: Ernest Shackleton, Winston Churchill, Mark Twain, Jack London, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Emily Dickinson and Booker T. Washington. This letter was previously owned by Esmond Bradley Martin (1941-2018) who over a thirty year period put together one of the greatest collections on Africa and its history. Martin was educated as a geographer and philosopher, and lived a large portion of his life in Africa. He wrote extensively, sometimes in collaboration with his wife, on African history and conservation. For a period, he was a United Nations special envoy for rhino conservation. He continued this work until 2018, when tragically he was murdered in his Nairobi home. Accompanied with Sotheby’s typed transcriptions from the original sale of the item in 1977. Lengthy letters by Stanley with such interesting content are rare to acquire..

I am neither pro-German, or pro-French and I distinctly see that the ideas you broach will not please Frenchmen nor indeed any American or Englishman who is of clean unbiassed mind, & I doubt, whether the higher class of Germans will regard them as wise. I cannot divest my mind quite from the suspicion that there is some irony concealed in your proposals, & if I were a Frenchman I feel I should be furiously angry. You may be innocent of all intention to provoke Frenchmen, but it is too evident your exaggerated ideas of German[y] might border perilously near being offensive. If America talked of American projects with such exaggerated insinuation of her power, & her wealth &c, she would be simply insufferable, & no lover of Germany would care to put ideas in her mouth which would estrange the good will of every nation. Germany is too rich & powerful to need such language to impress her greatness & her value as one of the foremost among the nations. As yet she feels the need of more land, but if out of inordinate conceit she proclaims her greedy love of it & wantonly promotes discord to indulge it, she will end in making herself as detested as the French did previous to 1870-71 [...]". - On his imprinted stationery; very scattered spotting..