Lot 9
![Speedy, Mrs [Cornelia Mary]](https://media.app.artisio.co/media/104cbde6-0d38-43cb-9e0f-bb721ef57bcf/inventory/0e04545d-3a70-4b82-8b4b-93e641e56457/caff6300-8f8f-42c5-9a20-0bed527484af/0001_riLPXr_original.jpg)
Speedy, Mrs [Cornelia Mary]
My Wanderings in the Soudan
Auction: Africa and the Source of the Nile - Selections from the Library of a Scottish Gentleman | Wed 25 February from 10am | Lots 1 to 30
Description
London: Richard Bentley & Son, 1884. First edition, 2 volumes, 8vo, xv 293, ix 264 pp., original red pictorial cloth over bevelled boards, spines lettered in gilt, pictorial block of the author on camelback to front boards, half-titles, wood-engraved vignettes to title-pages and in the text, folding lithographic map, spines toned and nicked, volume 2 spine rolled, Mudie's Select Library labels to front boards, bookseller's advertisement slip (lithographic facsimile of handwriting, printed in red, possibly Mudie's) tipped to volume 1 p. 1, ownership inscriptions to half-titles, superficial cracking to front inner hinge of volume 1 (2)
Provenance
Africa and the Source of the Nile - Selections from the Library of a Scottish Gentleman
Footnote
Mrs Speedy visited Sudan on a big-game hunting expedition together with her husband, a British army officer, in 1878. In the preface she ventures the claim of being ‘with the exception of Lady Baker, the only lady who has as yet made a tour through the Soudan’. ‘With a parasol over her shoulder, Cornelia Speedy learned to ride a camel and scout herds of antelope. It was her encounter with curious native Sudanese, however, that left an indelible impression on her … [Her] book … complete with the couple’s travels, adventures, and descriptions of [her husband's] Charlie's hunts after big game, only briefly mentioned her own hunting experiences. It was typical that the woman downplays her role when compared to her spouse' (Czech, With Rifle and Petticoat: Women as Big Game Hunters, 1880-1940, pp. 21-2).