African Studies and Anti Imperial Thought Mary Kingsley West African Studies 1901 with Autograph Letter on Scientific Fieldwork

Mary H. Kingsley

Book

Kingsley, Mary Henrietta. West African Studies, 1901, advances a detailed account of West African societies, religious systems, and legal structures based on fieldwork conducted during her travels between 1894 and 1895, offering a perspective that challenged prevailing European assumptions about African cultures. Kingsley’s writing addressed topics including property systems, religion, and law while also critiquing aspects of European imperial policy in West Africa, placing her work within broader debates over colonial governance and ethnographic knowledge production. Her expeditions, undertaken without formal scientific training yet in collaboration with local African communities, resulted in the collection of numerous biological specimens for the Natural History Museum, London, including previously undocumented fish and reptiles. The work supports research into African studies, colonial-era ethnography, women’s exploration, and the relationship between scientific collection and imperial expansion.

Kingsley, Mary Henrietta. West African Studies. London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1901. Second edition, with additional chapters. Illustrated with 27 plates, including a frontispiece portrait and scenes from regions including the Congo, Gabon, Loango, Angola, and the Gold Coast, and with one fold-out map of Tropical West Africa. The expanded edition includes chapters on West African property systems, African religion and law, and imperialism. An autograph letter signed by Kingsley, dated December 3, 1895, is inlaid on the front endpaper and addressed to “C. E. Fagan” of the British Museum (Natural History), in which she writes regarding “information about this case of fish,” referencing her recent return to England and her work classifying collected specimens.

Published at a moment when European knowledge of African societies was often filtered through colonial frameworks, Kingsley’s work stands out for its emphasis on direct observation and engagement with local populations, as well as for its skepticism toward imperial intervention. Her ability to travel independently and document cultural practices contributed to shifting attitudes about fieldwork as a method in anthropology and natural history. The inclusion of the 1895 letter links the volume to her active period of scientific contribution, situating the book within both intellectual and institutional networks of late nineteenth-century research. Light foxing to endpapers; letter clean and unaffected; overall in very good condition.

Item #16977

Price: $650.00