Mathilde Leduc-Grimaldi and James L. Newman, eds. Finding Dr. Livingstone: A History in Documents from the Henry Morton Stanley Archives. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2020. xvi + 542 pp. Photographs. Appendix. Bibliography. Index. $95.00. Cloth. ISBN: 978-0821423660.

Abstract

Having finally met with Dr. David Livingstone in November 1871, the following year (1872), Henry Morton Stanley published the book titled How I Found Livingstone. This book included the most pertinent information on the orders from his boss at the New York Herald (James Gordon Bennett, Jr.) to find Livingstone; his overseas expeditions; and how he and Livingstone finally met at Ujiji, explored parts of Africa, and later parted ways. What was, however, missing to those with interest in the histories of precolonial east and central Africa, the spread of Christianity, and the suppression of the slave trade, were the written notes and journals which Stanley, a correspondent with the New York Herald, kept on those expeditions.This collection of archival materials belongs to the Royal Museum of Central Africa (RMCA), which is located in Tervuren, Belgium, and run by the King Baudouin Foundation (KBF). The KBF purchased the Henry Morton Stanley (HMS) private papers, photographs, and correspondences and designated a place for them at the RMCA. We have to appreciate the painstaking role of the volume's editors, Mathilde Leduc-Grimaldi (representing the RMCA) and James L. Newman (from the University of Syracuse), in assembling these documents. The resulting publication provides reference to Stanley's thoughts and actions, and the political and economic contexts in which the expeditions were conducted (xi-xiii, 3-5).The Stanley Archives is comprised of documents which are organized in three notebooks and two journals. They contain details on Stanley's journeys and experiences and his meeting with Livingstone, a missionary of the London Missionary Society (LMS). In 1869, Bennett ordered Stanley to conduct the expeditions to discover Livingstone's whereabouts. By then, there were numerous rumors circulating about Livingstone, speculating that he was lost in Africa, that he was married to an African princess, or that he was dead. Stanley's attempt to find Livingstone that year ended in failure.