LIFE IN ABYSSINIA: Being Notes Collected During Three Years’ Residence and Travels in That Country. by Parkyns Mansfield - 1853

London: John Murray, 1853. 2 volumes. First edition. With a frontispiece in each volume, sixteen additional engraved plates 13 illustrations within the text and a folding map. 8vo, original elaborately patterned dark blue cloth with gilt vignettes on the upper covers of Abyssinian shields and weapons, the spines with gilt vignettes of St. George slaying the dragon, gilt lettering and attractive gilt borders at the spine tips. xv, 424; iv, 432 pp., and 16pp. ad catalogue. A very handsome set with only a bit of minor wear or mellowing to the bindings. Internally, still quite fresh and with far less foxing than is normative to the title, one hinge a little shaken. THE SCARCE TRUE FIRST EDITION, AND A COPY WITH THE ORIGINAL CLOTH UNUSUALLY WELL PRESERVED. Mansfield Perkyns (1823-1894) traveled to Abyssinia in 1843 and remained among the natives for three years. While there he married a local woman and fathered a child before returning to England in 1846. He was sent to Constantinople as an attaché to the embassy in 1850, and on his return to England in 1853 published this work, which is said to have excited much attention. Life in Abyssinia is treated comprehensively, touching on everything from natural history, social customs and amusements, to personal appearances and anecdotes of character. The author was personally acquainted with one of the most interesting regional rulers of the day, Dajazmach Wube Haile Maryam, ruler of Tigrey, as well as other Tigrean nobles. He provides us with a rare insiders view of Tigrean history from a period just prior to Dejazmach Wube's defeat and imprisonment.
Parkyns was known in his day as an excellent linguist, and was a member of the Royal Geographical Society, but this book was not well received in its own because Parkyns' manner of traveling and immersion into local life clashed with the English concept of propriety. But this immersion provides for a far better history and study of the region then one would likely gain from the more typical, and often condescending, writers of the era.