The autobiography of Sir Henry Morton Stanley, G.C.B.

There is no reason now for withholding the history of my early years, nothing to prevent my stating every fact about myself. I am now declining in vitality. My hard life in Afri...

It is said that one of the patrician Mostyns, of North Wales, possesses a written pedigree forty feet long, to prove the claim of his family to a direct descent from Adam. Thoug...

Whatever innocent trust I may have entertained, that beyond the walled domain of the Union House I should meet with glad friends, was doomed to an early disappointment. I had of...

When the ‘Windermere’ was deserted by the tug, and she rose and fell to the waves, I became troubled with a strange lightness of the head, and presently I seemed to stand in the...

The absolutely penniless has a choice of two things, work or starve. No boy of my age and vitality could deliberately choose starvation. The other alternative remained to me, an...

After tying up, I was at liberty to renovate my person. My shore-clothes restored me to the semblance of my former self, and, with many a protest of good-will from my late compa...

My education did not consist solely of his discussions upon books, morality, and religion, but it embraced a countless variety of topics suggested by our travels. By his method...

I am now about to begin a period lasting about six years, which, were it possible, I should gladly like to re-live, not with a view of repeating its woes and errors, pains and i...

On April 2, 1862, we received orders to prepare three days’ cooked rations. Through some misunderstanding, we did not set out until the 4th; and, on the morning of that day, the...

On the 8th of April we were embarked on a steamer, and despatched to St. Louis. We were a sad lot of men. I feel convinced that most of them felt, with myself, that we were ill-...

That material consists, first, of an occasional and very brief diary, which he kept from 1862; then, at irregular intervals through many years, entries in a fuller journal, and...

Stanley writes: ‘My first entry into journalistic life as a selected “special” was at St. Louis after my return from Asia Minor. Hitherto, I had only been an attaché, or supernu...

So the fair Greek disappears; and Stanley, free and heart-whole, is whirled away again by the ‘Herald’s’ swift and changing summons: to Athens, to witness a Royal Baptism, and d...

In his book, ‘How I Found Livingstone,’ Stanley has told that story at length. What here follows is arranged from material hitherto unpublished, and is designed to give the main...

It is not unadvisedly that the last chapter has been devoted almost as much to Livingstone as to Stanley. The main story of Stanley’s quest he has told effectively elsewhere;[16...

In a camp in the heart of Africa, not far from Lake Bangweolo, David Livingstone, the traveller-evangelist, lay dead. His followers, numbering about three-score negroes of Zanzi...

The first work, exploration, was done. Now for the harder task, civilisation. That was henceforth the main purpose and passion of Stanley’s life. For him, the quest of wider kno...

My fifth expedition was due to the overwhelming catastrophe which occurred at Khartoum, on January 26th, 1885. On that date the heroic defender of the city, General Charles Geor...

The foregoing pages are compiled partly from unpublished papers of Stanley’s, and partly from his private Journals. Some further passages may here be given from private note-boo...

The close of the story of Stanley’s African explorations may fitly be followed by a survey of the net result. Such an estimate is given in a paper by Mr. Sidney Low, in the ‘Cor...

There was a charm attached to the Great Forest that was only revealed to me after it had dropped beyond the horizon. I had found that a certain amount of determination was neces...

On Saturday, July 12, 1890, I was married to Stanley, at Westminster Abbey. He was very ill at the time, with gastritis and malaria, but his powerful will enabled him to go thro...

Soon after our marriage, I thought of Parliament for Stanley. It seemed to me that one so full of energy, with such administrative power and political foresight, would find in t...

In June, 1895, Parliament was dissolved, and active electioneering commenced. On Monday, July 15, 1895, Stanley was elected M. P. for North Lambeth, with a majority of four hund...

January 1st, 1896. We have begun the New Year badly! The hurricane blast I predicted has burst out in the form of a denunciatory message from President Cleveland upon the subjec...

I have always a feeling, when observing an audience in England, that the people who appear to be listening are engaged upon their own particular thoughts. I have sometimes said...

In the autumn of 1898, Stanley decided to look for a house in the country. We had lived, since our marriage, at 2, Richmond Terrace, Whitehall, close to the Houses of Parliament...

The year 1903 found Stanley very busy making further improvements, building, and planting. The house at Furze Hill, in 1900, had practically been rebuilt by him; every year he a...

Civil law is not sufficient by itself for mankind. It is for the protection of men from abuse, and for the punishment of offenders; but religion teaches just intercourse, unself...