In 1911, this was the definitive book on lion hunting. It is a mix of "how to" and a general overview of the understanding of lion hunting, habitat, habits, distribution and history. Pease mixes stories of his personal experience with stories he has heard and verified. He was one of the hosts for Teddy Roosevelt in the famous 1909 safari that lasted over a year. There are a couple in interesting observations about Pease' relationship with TR that seem to indicate the TR was not all that impressed with Pease.

This book is part of the St. Maartens Press collection of books put out under Peter Capstick in the 1980's. PHC writes an intro to each book and has written a good one for this book. Capstick did some interesting research on Pease that he included in the introduction.

The first 20 or so pages of the book are easily the most interesting. They are a summary of Pease' thoughts on civilization as he knew it comparing the lives of Londoners to the lives of native Africans. He is very opinionated on this and goes on about how the African is more civilized that the Londoners and how they have a better overall life. He also questions the perspective held by Europeans that Africans are savages and barely above primates in terms of intelligence. He offers numerous insights and examples to support his observations. I tend to agree with him.

The rest of the book "ok", good not great, interesting but not spellbinding, informative for the period but not as interesting as Selous or others. It is well written but with a false humility that I see in many other British authors of the time. He fancied himself as an adventurer and "expander of the empire" but I do not think he was a great example of it in the long run.

Overall, a fun, period book with the first chapter being the best essay on the African I have read recently. It is easy to find as many 2nd editions are out there. I would rate this a 7 on the dogcat scale and give it a soft recommendation to read. If Nickudu has it on the AR forum, read the first chapter and skip the rest unless you are a historian of this period.

I found the above at our local library many years ago, and found it very interesting.