Travels through the interior of Africa, from the Cape of Good Hope to Morocco; in Caffraria, the Kingdoms of Mataman, Angola, Massi, Monoemugi, Muschako, Bahahara, Wangara, Haoussa [...]

Full title: Travels through the interior of Africa, from the Cape of Good Hope to Morocco; in Caffraria, the Kingdoms of Mataman, Angola, Massi, Monoemugi, Muschako, Bahahara, Wangara, Haoussa, &c. &c. And thence through the Desert of Sahara, and the North of Barbary to Morocco. Between the Years 1781 and 1797. By Christian Frederick Damberger. With a new map, and several coloured plates. Faithfully translated from the German.

8vo. f. [1] (blank), [iii], iv-xxii, pp. 544 (237-256 omitted in paging), ff. [4] (plates). Signatures: a8 b3 B-P8 Q4 R2 S-Z8 Aa-Mm8. Calf. Gilt spine. Red lettering panel. Frontispiece (color portrait), handcolored plates, 1 folding map folded map, by C.F. Goldbach with imprint ‘Published [Decr] 20. 1800. by R. Phillips 78. St. Pauls Ch. Yard’, and ‘Smith & Jones sc. Pentonville’. On pp. 537-544, C.F. Goldbach writes "Of the construction of the map.”

This is one of several translations, and probably the first ("The translator's preface" (pp. [iii]-viii) is dated "London, Dec. 13, 1800."), of the third of three fictitious first-person travelogues, all by the mysterious hack and possibly pseudonymous Zacharias Taurinius. These are all issued under different names and for three Leipzig publishers between 1799 and 1801 (see Bib# 4103014/Fr# 1419, Bib# 491157/Fr# 1420, and Bib# 4103015/Fr# 1421).

The last Taurinius travel fiction was published under the nom de plume Christian Friedrich Damberger. ‘Damberger’, supposedly a Dutchman, and begins with excursions in Germany, France, and Great Britain, followed by highly realistic and temporarily convincing travels in unexplored central Africa, complete with colored plates and detailed semi-imaginary maps. This became an instant critical and popular success, with rapid-fire translations into French and, like this one, into English, and no fewer than seven differing English, Scottish, Irish, and American versions published within its first year, until scholars in Jena and Göttingen exposed the evident ‘plagiarisms’ it contained from many sources, including the very recent ‘Schroedter’ and ‘Taurinius’ volumes. A flurry of periodical articles and a denunciatory pamphlet followed (London, 1801), and in Leipzig the three deceived publishers met and discovered that their three submitted manuscripts were in one and the same hand. ‘Taurinius’ cheerfully confessed (one Junge, a certain ‘master of arts’ in Wittenberg, where Taurinius had ostensibly practiced as a printer, was mooted as the real forger), and no more is heard of either. For a good account of the hoax, for a long time a credited source of information about the Dark Continent, see R. J. Howgego, Encyclopedia of exploration: invented and apocryphal narratives of travel. Potts Point, New South Wales, 2013, D2(b).

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