An important archive of original letters and unrecorded material charting the life of Verney Lovett Cameron (1844-1894), the first explorer to cross Africa east to west, lovingly compiled by his widow Amy Nora Read Lovett Cameron (1852-1929).

Verney Lovett Cameron was selected to lead the Relief expedition to find Dr Livingstone after several years employed in the suppression of the East African Slave Trade. Shortly after leaving Zanzibar in 1873 Cameron and his companions encountered a caravan bearing the body of Livingstone. Cameron's two colleagues turned back to accompany the body, leaving Cameron to continue his march across Africa. In February 1874 he reached Ujiji, on Lake Tanganyika, where he found and sent back to England Livingstone's personal papers. He continued on foot along the Congo-Zambezi watershed before finally arriving at Catumbela, on the coast of Angola, almost three years later in November 1875. He was the first European to cross Africa from coast to coast, a distance of some three thousand miles.

The three albums contain a trove of letters conveying congratulations and correspondence from various institutions and notable individuals. Some of the most impressive include Sir Richard Burton (1821-1890), Sir Samuel Baker (1821-1893) ('I have just finished Livingstone's Journals & I cannot conceive why he did not devote himself to the search for the outlet of the Tanganyika'), Sir Alfred Edward Pease (1857-1939), Sir Clements Markham (1830-1916), Ármin Vámbéry (1832-1913), Serpa Pinto (1846-1900), Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902), Sir John Kirk (1832-1922), George Percy Badger (1815-1888), Thomas Woolner (1825-1892), and Sir Edwin Arnold (1832-1904). There are also several letters written by Cameron, including one disparaging the efforts and motivation of Cecil Rhodes, and another to Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff, President of the Royal Geographical Society, complaining about the incorrect credit given to Henry Morton Stanley in identifying the Lukuga and the Lualaba.

With the letters are a number of rare pamphlets and publications associated with the important expeditions of the day, such as: a published fund raising letter for the Nyassa Relief Expedition, the account of the Meeting of the Royal Geographical Society of 10th January, 1876, containing the first published account of Cameron's journey, a 2-page announcement of subscription for the Cameron-Livingstone Expedition, the Report of the Proceedings of the The Central African and Zoutpansberg Exploration Company, 30th January 1894, exploring the commercial possibilities of Central Africa, and the first subscription list of the Cameron Expedition Fund.

In total a unique record of the life of one of the great African travellers, preserved through the dedication of his wife Amy.

Three albums, 4to (30 x 26 cm); containing 129 letters, 24 photographs, 7 maps, and numerous pamphlets, telegrams, commissions, invitations, newspaper cuttings, pressed flowers, and related ephemera, some leaves loose at hinge, remains of a few items extracted; [and] 2 vols, 8vo; inscribed to front free endpaper, large folding map in pocket at end, 2 frontispieces, 27 full-page plates, 4 facsimiles, many illustrations in the text, publisher's original blue cloth professionally restored, a good set, xvi, 389; xii, 366; overall in good condition with the letters particularly well preserved.