Creator
Theodore Roosevelt
Title
African Game Trails: An Account of the African Wanderings of an American Hunter-Naturalist
Coverage
New York
Publisher
Charles Scribner's Sons
Date
1910
Description
First edition, presentation copy inscribed to Oscar King Davis (1866-1932), U.S. journalist and war correspondent.
Chronicle of Roosevelt’s expedition to Africa to collect specimens for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. In true bibliophile fashion, Roosevelt brought along his ‘Pigskin Library’ of literary classics. He selected pigskin for its durability, writing, “The books were stained with blood, sweat, gun oil, dust and ashes; ordinary bindings either vanished or became loathsome, whereas pigskin merely grew to look as a well-used saddle looks” (p. 570).