Description
GIDE (André).
Journey to the Congo. Travel Diaries. – Return from Chad. Continuation of Journey to the Congo. Travel Diaries.
Paris: Éditions de la Nouvelle Revue Française, 1927–1928. — 2 works in 2 quarto volumes, 217 × 166: map, 249 pp., (3 leaves, the last blank), 2 maps, printed cover; map, 252 pp., (2 blank folios at the end), 3 maps, printed cover. Paperback.
First edition of these two complementary volumes, recounting André Gide’s African journey: the first covers his travels through the French possessions in Equatorial Africa, from July 1925 to February 1926; the second continues the account, from February to May 1926, from Lake Chad to Douala, in Cameroon.
Commissioned by the Ministry of the Colonies to produce a report, Gide, then aged 56, embarked on this eleven-month journey accompanied by his lover, Marc Allégret, who managed the logistics whilst photographing and filming their adventure.
‘The book reads, first and foremost, like a travel journal, a masterpiece of its kind thanks to his keen powers of observation, his talents as an entomologist, and the elegance of his style... But this unprecedented encounter between a Parisian dandy writer and the mysterious beauty of Black Africa is marred by the outrage he felt at the exploitation of the ‘natives’ and the abuse and humiliation effectively condoned by the colonial administration. Gide thus took on the role of investigator, following in the footsteps of Pierre Sarvognan de Brazza, the former commissioner of the Congo and founder of Brazzaville, who had been commissioned by the French government to investigate the system of concessions. But whilst the 1905 report, which had already denounced the same evils, had been literally buried, Gide ensured that his cry of revolt was disseminated as widely as possible, and, thanks to press coverage, succeeded in getting the Chamber of Deputies to finally take up the issue. This journey thus marks Gide’s first act of politically engaged literature’ (Vignes, *Les Gide de M. Clarac*, no. 60).
The edition is illustrated with 7 separate maps.
First-edition copies reprinted in the tellière quarto format, on Lafuma-Navarre laid paper, from a print run of 118 and 120 copies, the latter bearing the number LXIII, specially printed for Mr E. Vanderborght.
The copies are in good condition.
See original version (French)
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About the sale
Claude Mozis Library – Black Africa and the African diaspora
Auction location
Auction time
10/21/2026 at 2:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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