ALLEN, William & T. R. H. Thomson. A Narrative of the Expedition sent by Her Majesty’s Government to The River Niger in 1841. Under the command of Captain H. D. Trotter, R.N. By Captain William Allen, R.N. and T.R.H. Thomson, M.D., Surgeon, R.N. Published with the sanction of the Colonial Office and the Admiralty. In two volumes. London: Richard Bentley, 1848 8vo. (1). xviii,509pp. 9 plates, (1 folding), 3 maps, (2 folding), coloured geological section, 12 text-illustrations. (2). viii,511pp. 9 plates, 13 text-illustrations, linguistic and natural history appendices.

Captain Henry Dundas Trotter (1802 – 1859) commanded the 1841 expedition which was sent by the British Government to further the progress of the suppression of the slave trade through legitimate trade and to further explore the course of the Niger. Although the expedition was a failure due to disease, the various publications were a useful outcome. The spines carefully rebacked in a matching cloth with the original gilt lettered backstrips laid-on (volume I has a piece of the lettering missing), repairs to the folds on the maps and folding plate, some light foxing on the steel engravings, a very nice set in the publisher’s blindstamped olive cloth, with the Pull Court Library bookplate of the politician William Dowdeswell (1804 – 1870) M.P. for Tewkesbury from 1835 to 1845, and from the library of the African-American collector and writer, Professor John Ralph Willis with his bookplate.