The Pale Abyssinian: A Life of James Bruce, African Explorer and Adventurer

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HarperCollins, 2000 - Biography & Autobiography - 290 pages
The achievements of James Bruce are the stuff of legends. In a time when Africa was an unexplored blank on the map, he discovered the source of the Blue Nile, lived with the Emperor of Abyssinia at court in Gondar, commanded the Emperor's horse guard in battle and fell in love with a princess. After 12 years of travels, and having cheated death on countless occasions, Bruce returned to England from his Herculean adventures only to be ridiculed and despised as a fake by Samuel Johnson and the rest of literary London. It was only when explorers penetrated the African interior 100 years later and were asked if they were friends with a man called Bruce, that it was finally confirmed that Bruce really had achieved what he had claimed.--Amazon.com.

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Contents

The Jacobite Hanoverian
1
The Calamitous Consul
21
The Enlightened Tourist
46
Copyright

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About the author (2000)

Miles Bredin, born in London in 1965, has written for most of the British national newspapers, and from 1990 to 1992 was United Press International's East Africa bureau chief. His first book 'Blood on the tracks; A Rail Journey from Angola to Mozambique' was published by Picador in 1994.

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