“How I Found Livingstone” is the first person account of journalist Henry Stanley who was assigned to go find Livingstone, who had been missing for two years in Central Africa and was presumed by some to be dead. It’s an interesting read, not just for the story that Stanley thinks he is telling about Central Africa, but for the implicit story of Stanley himself, including his own attitudes. It’s enough to make you want to build a time machine so you can go back in time and smack him. And of course Stanley is telling tell tales for his audience too. Should be read in conjunction with a good work of history to put this self-absorbed cad in context.

The five stars are for the edition, which is hard cover with color illustrations and maps as well as more current photographs of the places that are discussed in Stanley’s book. You need a good reason to buy a book edition, because you can download Stanley’s entire book for free through Google Books. I started to do this but decided that I wanted a book form rather than 800 printer pages, and I think I got my money’s worth.

Get it from Librivox

Here is the first chapter.