MR. STANLEY, I PRESUME? - The Life and Explorations of Henry Morton Stanley

Famous for having found the great missionary and explorer Dr David Livingstone on the shores of Lake Tanganyika and immortalised as the utterer of perhaps the four most often quoted words of greeting of all time - 'Dr Livingstone, I presume?' - Henry Morton Stanley was himself a man who characterised the great wave of exploring fever that gripped the nineteenth century. Yet his life and achievements are too little known. Often thought of - and portrayed as - an American, Stanley was born the illegitimate son of Welsh parents and emigrated to America as a young man. He spent a number of years as a soldier in the American Civil War (fighting for both sides), as a seaman on merchant ships and a journalist during the early days of frontier expansion, before being commissioned to find Livingstone. His success made him a hero and he continued his explorations but his journalistic outlook and forceful methods generated fierce criticism - the public preferred their explorers to be gentlemen. A rover and opportunist by nature, he upset the establishment and yet to managed to become part of it, ending up as an MP and member of the landed gentry.