A WEDDING GIFT FROM ONE OF STANLEY'S SENIOR OFFICERS

The Christian Year … [with] STANLEY, Henry Morton. Single sheet message to General Ponsonby to pass thanks on to Queen Victoria for her message. December 6 1889.

London: Suttaby & Co, [1880].

Price: $3,000.00

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10 photographs laid down. xii, 383, [1ads] pp. 8vo. A WEDDING GIFT FROM ONE OF STANLEY'S SENIOR OFFICERS. Black coarse grain morocco, spine gilt, a.e.g. Tim Jeal, Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer, London, 2007.

Item #301863

A wonderful souvenir from Stanley's wedding with a significant association.

The inscription reads in part: "To Henry M Stanley Esq / Dear Sir, / Accept this book on this your nuptial day as a souvenir from one of your companions through the late arduous Expedition. With best wishes & long life & happiness Faithfully yours William Bonny."

Bonny was one of four army officers chosen by Stanley to lead his Emin Pasha relief expedition, 1886-9. His official capacity was as medical assistant (to Surgeon Thomas Parke) and in Stanley's account of the expedition, In Darkest Africa, he says "I had frequent occasions to remark to him that his goodwill and devotion were equal to that shown by the others, and as for bravery, I think he has as much as the bravest."

Emin Pasha was the governor of Equatorial Sudan, who appealed for help once he found himself engulfed in the same Mahdist uprising as General Gordon in 1885. Stanley finally located Emin in 1888 along the shores of Lake Ujiji - though he was not, in fact, minded to be rescued. Stanley had split his party into two groups, the Advance Column being those traveling with him and then the Rear Column who would camp at Yambuya on the Aruwimi.

It was Bonny who first advised Stanley of the disastrous state of the Rear Column and of the impropriety of Barttelot and Jameson. Stanley came to see Bonny as a key ally. He was, in fact, one of just three people to see a pre-publication copy of In Darkest Africa. Tim Jeal explains: "Stanley knew that one day, if he were to have problems with the Barttelot and Jameson families, he would need Bonny to go public with his account of the terrible things that had gone on at Yambuya" (Jeal, 399).