EARLY PRINTING FROM AFRICA IN THE

BRITISH LIBRARY

CAROLE HOLDEN

ALTHOUGH the date of the introduction of printing to Africa south of the Sahara rangesacross the continent from the late eighteenth to late nineteenth century, its developmentusually followed a similar pattern and in many cases can be traced to the arrival ofChristian missionaries. Indigenous literature was predominantly oral in nature, passeddown from generation to generation in the form of folktales, myths, songs, riddles andproverbs. This rich tradition was largely ignored as a source of inspiration for printingsince the earliest presses were invariably linked to one of two activities - the efforts atevangelism by missionaries in the field, or the endeavours of colonial governments toadminister their colonies. Newspapers could fall into either of these categories, although,as printing developed, the independent newspaper press became a significant category inits own right.

Information regarding the mission presses is not easily found. Many of the publishedhistories of the relevant missions often pay scant attention to the details of local printing.In fact, there appears to be relatively little written on the subject of early African printingin general, although this is perhaps not surprising, given the nature of most of thematerial published. Furthermore, one can find many references to titles reported to beprinted by various sources, often the missionaries themselves, for which there are noknown locations and which very probably no longer exist, unless in private collections.For example, in one of the few detailed accounts of mission printing of which I am aware,R. H. Carnie^ hsts the publications printed between 1846 and 1857 by the press of thePresbyterian mission established in 1846 at Old Calabar (now in eastern Nigeria). He wasunable to find locations for fourteen out of the seventeen titles listed. Two of the itemsare indicated as being held by the British Library, namely Hugh Goldie's Principles ofEfik Grammar (1857) and Mbuk mkpo emi ekewetde ke Obtifa Testament (New Testamentin Efik, 1852). The latter title, however, was destroyed during World War II.

To discover the extent of the British Library's holdings of early African imprints, Iembarked on a project to identify and list them. For the purposes of the project 'early'was taken to cover all material published or printed in sub-Saharan Africa, excludingSouth Africa but including the Indian Ocean islands, prior to 1900.̂ Initially, I beganto identify titles in relevant bibliographies and catalogues, and would then check themagainst the Library's holdings. A particularly useful source for early titles was Wilhelm

Bleek's catalogue of Sir George Grey's splendid collection of Africana, now at the SouthAfrican Library, Cape Town. Although printed in 1858, it is still one of the mostvaluable (and easy to use) sources for the early period. Indeed, for many years itremained the most detailed bibliography of early African language studies. The Germanphilologist had originally been attached to an expedition to West Africa m 1854, hisintention being to study the languages of the Lower Niger and Benue. He hadaccordingly collected material on the subject, including items acquired from missionariesin Sierra Leone. Unfortunately, the young Bleek became ill on the journey and had tobe sent home. This stroke of fate was to result in his attention turning to South Africa,where he was to become a pioneer of Bantu studies and cataloguer of Grey's library. Thematerial acquired for his West African expedition was added to Grey's collection.Another useful source was Geraldine Coldham's Bibliography of Scriptures in AfricanLanguages (London, 1966, and Supplement, 1975) which revises the African sections ofDarlow and Moule's Historical Catalogue of Printed Editions of the Holy Scriptures. Basedon the collections of the British & Foreign Bible Society, the bibliography includes manyexamples of early translations printed in Africa. Unfortunately, while many of the titlesidentified in such sources could be found in the British Library catalogues, a greaternumber could not. I soon found that the most efficient way to proceed was to discoverthe locations of the early centres of printing, most often the locations of the missionstations, and then to search the on-line retrospective catalogue by place. Although notfoolproof, this method proved quite successful and accounts for the majority of the 500or so titles identified thus far. Approximately one half of these titles emanate fromMadagascar and Mauritius, whilst newspapers account for over one hundred titles. Mostmaterial dates from the mid to late nineteenth century, but there are some eighteenth-century items from Mauritius, the Library's collections being particularly strong in thisarea. The earliest titles include Annonces, affiches et avis divers pour les colonies de Isles deFrance et de Bourbon (issues covering 1773-5). and Claude Bernard Challan's VocabulaireMalgache (1773), both printed by L'Imprimerie Royale on He de France.

A general collection was clearly unlikely to be able to compete with the holdings ofspecial collections such as the two mentioned above so it is not surprising that Idiscovered many gaps in the Library's holdings. However, the presence or absence ofparticular titles started to become of interest in itself, leading me to investigate the routeby which some of the items had found their way into the collections. Since work is sailvery much in progress, my intention in this article is to discuss two specific, and quitedifferent, acquisitions. The first consists of a large collection of nineteenth-century workson African languages, many of which were compiled by missionaries, and some of whichwere printed in Africa. The second pertains to early printing in Madagascar and, inparticular, to the first edition of the Malagasy Bible.

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The advance of the missionaries into Africa led to much linguistic activity. Although

they arrived armed with Bibles, hymn books, catechisms and other religious materialwhich they had brought from Europe, it was obviously necessary for them not only tobe able to communicate in the vernaculars, but also to provide suitable reading materialin them for new converts. The book was regarded as an important tool for conversion,and the success of a particular mission was often seen to depend on the ability of the localpopulation to read the scriptures. This flurry of linguistic activity accordingly resultedin numerous grammars and vocabularies, together with hundreds of translations of thescriptures into the languages of Africa. In fact, many of the early studies of Africanlanguages were carried out by European missionaries who learned those languagesprimarily in order to translate the scriptures into them. The early history of the studyof African languages is, therefore, closely connected to the history of Christian missionsin Africa, and the scriptures were often the first piece of written material, howeverimperfect the rendering, in the local languages.^

Many of these early language studies were of course printed in Europe, but one canalso find examples printed in Africa, usually produced by the local missionaries for theuse of other missionaries in the field. The already mentioned Vocabulaire Malgache, forexample, was compiled by the Lazarist priest Claude Bernard Challan and intended forthe use of missionaries working in Madagascar. I have also noted Hugh Goldie'sPrinciples ofEjik Grammar, printed by the Mission Press in Old Calabar in 1857. Othertitles to be found in the British Library include John Payne's Brief Grammatical Analysisof the Grebo Language (Cape Palmas, 1838), Edward Steere's Collections for a Handbookof the Shambala Language (Zanzibar, 1867), Alfred Saker's Grammatical Elements of theDualla Language (Cameroons, 1855), and D. L. Carr and J. P. Brown's MfantsiGrammar, printed by T. J. Carr in Cape Coast in 1868. The latter was the first work tobe printed in Fanti in the Gold Coast and was produced by two missionaries from thatcountry who took as their motto, 'Let all foreign tongues alone, till you can read andwrite your own'.

The acquisition of a number of such titles can be traced to the purchase of a collectionof sixty-eight items, all concerning African languages, made by the British MuseumLibrary in 1885. On 5 May 1885, Robert Needham Cust (1821-1909) wrote to theLibrary offering to sell his large collection of books on African languages. Principallyknown as an orientalist, he had also published A Sketch of the Modern Languages ofAfrica (London, 1883). 'To complete this I had to purchase books right and left inAmerica, Europe and Africa. The books were not large, or expensive, but rare, only tobe got by diligent search, as they did not exist in any English, German or FrenchHbrary'.^ Cust pointed out that he could easily sell the entire collection to Quaritch orTriibner but was offering it to the Museum since 'Your library is very deficient in thisclass of book'. He continued: 'There is no such African library in England - perhaps inthe world, and yet it is all in three shelves'.^ To emphasize his point, he wrote again tothe Museum on 27 June, this time enclosing a letter 'from Mr Johnston, the Africantraveller from Kili-manjaro. It illustrates the ovid [sic] in your library'.^ On 24 June1885, Harry Johnston had written to Cust, ' I do not know whether it is the hot weather

3

or that I am overworked, but I am very cross with the British Museum library. Theyhave scarcely a single rare authority, or even common, in African languages. NoSchweinfurth,^..no Bari grammar, no nothing!'^

The Library had not always so failed Johnston. Having obtained his reader's ticket assoon as he had reached his twenty-first birthday, he first used the Library's resources tostudy Saracen architecture. Although he had made several visits to North Africa, the firstopportunity to venture further into Africa presented itself in November 1881. The Earlof Mayo was planning a sporting expedition to the interior of Angola and offered a freetrip, excluding the cost of the steamer from Liverpool to Mossamedes, to a Portuguese-speaking naturalist. Although not the first choice, Johnston eagerly signed up for the trip,having persuaded his father to pay the fare.' It was arranged in this expedition that I wasto study the languages and to make natural-history collections. So in November andDecember 1881 I spent much time at the British Museum library initiating myself intothe Bantu Languages'.^ Amongst other things, he consulted Bleek's work A ComparativeGrammar of South African Languages (London & Cape Town, 1862-9), therebydiscovering what was to become perhaps the greatest interest in a life full of manyinterests, the comparative study of the Bantu languages. Following his return from thelater East African expedition referred to by Cust, his language studies, and in particular,his attempts to compare Masai and Bari, were being hindered by the lack of suitable textsin the Library. Evidently, Triibner had also failed to be of assistance. 'Triibneradvertises a Bari grammar but of course hasn't got it in stock. Half his list of Africanlanguages is humbug. He hasn't got them when you apply. Could you help me if you arein town ? '̂ **' I asked the little man to come round to my home and lent him all the bookshe wanted', wrote Cust, rather patronizingly.^^ Described as 'the completest''Africanist'" by Roland Oliver,̂ '̂ Johnston filled many roles during his lifetime-naturalist, explorer, artist, not forgetting government administrator and supporter of theadvance of British colonialism. His fascination with the Bantu languages, however, wasto endure for the rest of his life, and resulted, some thirty years later, in the publicationof his two-volume work A Comparative Study of the Bantu and Semi-Bantu Languages(Oxford, 1919-22). '̂̂

The Library finally acquired the sixty-eight works from Cust's African collection, ata cost of £13 6s 6d, the titles being clearly documented on Cust's invoice of 5 November1885.^^ One cannot help but be impressed at the range of material that he managed toamass to aid him in his study. In the introduction to his Sketch of the Modern Languagesof Africa he describes in a little more detail the methods by which he set about acquiringmaterial. The diligence and enthusiasm that he devoted to his task are immediatelyevident. The catalogue of friends and correspondents listed in the preface reads like aWho's Who of not only the mission movement in Africa, but virtually all relevant Africanscholars of the period. For example, 'Some of my personal friends and helpers, likeSteere, Krapf, Schlenker, Cooley, Reichardt, and Moffat, opere in medio., have passedaway, leaving their notes in my portfolio, their books on my shelves, and their kindnessin my memory... Old scholars, like Schon, Latham, Koelle, S. Crowther, and F.

Newman, have helped with their advice'.^^ It is hardly surprising that Harry Johnstonturned to Cust when let down by the British Museum Library. Although Cust offeredto supply further books to the Museum, this time material acquired during his otherphilological studies, it does not appear that the offer was ever pursued. We can, however,be grateful that the Library's collection of African language studies was considerablyenriched by this single purchase.

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As noted earlier, approximately half of the early African printed items which have beenidentified in the British Library's collections emanate from Mauritius (140 titles) andMadagascar (no). By the mid eighteenth century, Mauritius, or He de France as it wasthen known, was a flourishing French colony with a significant intellectual community.It is not surprising then that the island has a long printing history and that a widerange of material was published. Even during the earliest period of printing on the island,from its introduction circa 1767 until 1810, when the British captured the island, theoutput of the press included almanacs, newspapers, and at least some works of scientificand literary interest, in addition to language studies and official documents relating to thegovernment of the island. The range of material increased during the nineteenth century,many publications still appearing in French. One can find, for example, poetry, novels,political satires, revolutionary material, historical and geographical descriptions, workson the botany of the island, and journals of learned societies. Mauritian printing has beenwell documented by Augustine Toussaint. Early Printing in the Mascarene Islands,176J-1810 (Paris & London, 1951) together with his Bibliography of Mauritius(iSO2-ig54) (Port Louis, 1956) provide an invaluable source. The latter covers not onlythe printed record, but also manuscripts, archival and cartographic material. Materialheld in the British Library's collections is often indicated, including a number ofeighteenth-century printed items which are to be found in the Department ofManuscripts (fig. i).^^ That there was an active, although not quite so varied, press onMadagascar is somewhat more surprising, and was due almost entirely to the workof a group of missionaries from the London Missionary Society. The significance of theiractivities for the development of the island, together with the importance attached toprinting by the missionaries themselves, has ensured that the history of missionaryprinting in Madagascar, at least for the early period (1828-36), has been documented ingreater detail than for most African countries, by the missionaries themselves and inother historical sources.

Both the British and the French had made a number of attempts to establish a footholdon Madagascar and continued to skirmish over it for most of the eighteenth century, arefiection of the wars in Europe. The Malagasy people were divided into a large numberof ethnic groups, often separated by huge areas of bush or forest, and many of the groupswere in a more or less permanent state of war with each other. There was, however asignificant degree of uniformity in language and customs. Towards the end of the

COLONIALEDE L'lsLE DE FRAN CE.

Sia.nct rfn 7 Brumaire, au fair, ^e, anr.ee de la repubUque frangaife.

e colon'uie, oiii le rapport de fon commifTaire ;••/ Atrete qu'cllc rapi^otte t'lriide ij de la lot du 5 dccembre 1795

\ vieiix i\y\e ] ,par Icqwel il ciaitalloue detappointetnent & diverslilaires au conlervateur des hypolheques , pour les op^fitiunt & expe-ditions eQ forme des lettres de r i t i i

qu'il (era pay« une fomme de irente mille livres parannce , au conferviiteur de« hypothei^ues, pour lui tenic Ueu d'jp-poiniemens , Ulaires &£ frais de bmeau.

ArrSte qu'a l'avenir il fera per^u au profit de la commune generals ,un droit dun pour cent, fur le prix de chaque acqiiifi[r>n pourlaqiielle il (era deminde da* letlres de ratification , & qu'ducnn ca>i*trat ne (era ttqa au bureau des hypaihcques, fi la partie iat^reir;ieBe ju{l fie pas ta quittance du trilonsr general de la Catonte, dupayement du fuCdit droitd*ui pour cent; laquelle quittance demsurerA

jointeau contrat.Arrete que les Giioyens qui anterieurement a la publication du

pr^lent , out depof^ leur contrat pour obtenir des lettres de ratiii-cation, feront ]ibrei de les retirer, en rembourlant let iVais quiauronc cte faits jufqu*i ladite epoque,

Arrete enfin que le prefent fcra adreiT^ au direffcolre.Signe CHAUVET , Priftdent', & AMELIN , Secritairt.

Paur copic contorme ik I'origiflal. SEQUAKO, Stcreiain,Suit TarrSte du d

AuPort de la Montagne, ohetF. N. BotLE.

Fig. I. Decrees of the Colonial Assembly, He de France (Mauritius), 7 Brumaire IV (29 Oct.1795)1 printed on the island by F. N. BoUe. Add. MS. 18140, f. 104

century, the nephew of the King of Ambohimanga, the most eastern kingdom ofImerina, had seized power in the interior of the island from his uncle, and proclaimedhimself Andrianampoinimerina ('the lord at the heart of Imerina'). He later succeededin conquering a number of neighbouring kingdoms, reunified the Merina kingdom andestablished Antananarivo as his capital. He was succeeded by his son. King Radama I,in 1810. Radama was to play a significant role in the political development of the island,its relations with the British and, in particular, the missionaries. Following the signingof the Anglo-Malagasy Treaty of Friendship and Commerce in 1817, Radama alsoinvited British missionaries to work on the island, the first to arrive being David Jonesof the London Missionary Society, who visited Tamatave in 1818 and was to return to

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Antananarivo in 1820. The Rev. William Ellis's History of Madagascar, published in1838, provides a summary of the history of the island as far as it was known at the time.Ellis, who was foreign secretary to the London Missionary Society, also covers thehistory of the mission from its establishment in 1818 up to 1837, when the missionarieswere forced to leave. He writes that Radama welcomed further missionaries, with theproviso that they brought with them not only religious teachers, but also craftsmen. Ina letter dated 29 October 1820, Radama wrote to the LMS headquarters, ' I request youto send me, if convenient, as many Missionaries as you may deem proper, together withtheir families, if they desire it; provided you send skilful artisans to make my peopleworkmen, as well as good Christians'.^^ This astute request would have considerablesignificance for the future since it was to result in the introduction of numerous crafts,such as carpentry, weaving, tanning, and stone cutting, to the island.

The earliest efforts of the LMS missionaries were applied to learning the Malagasylanguage. They opened their first school in Antananarivo on 8 December 1820 with threepupils, all nephews of the King. The teaching medium was the Merina dialect, a factorwhich was to contribute to this dialect gaining ascendancy over others to become theofficial language of the island. Only in the south-east was any form of writing known. Inthis area, the Antemoro immigrants, who had once been Muslims, had abandoned theirown religion and language but retained the use of Arabic characters to write Malagasyon paper that they made themselves. Elsewhere on the island, literature was entirely oraland assumed a variety of forms, including speeches (known as kabary), history, tales, lovepoetry, songs to accompany dances, and proverbs.

Encouraged by the King, the missionaries opened more schools. By 1827, education,albeit tied to Christianity, had progressed to the extent that some four thousand pupilshad been taught to read and write in their own language. The missionaries were aware,however, that further progress was being hindered by the lack of a supply of books inMalagasy. They had hoped that this situation would be remedied with the arrival inNovember 1827 of Charles Hovenden with the island's first press. Hovenden, a printerby trade, had previously been employed by the Bible Society in St Petersburg. Sent outby the LMS, he brought with him the press, types and printing material. However,within only two days of arrival at Antananarivo, he and all his family became ill withmalaria, Hovenden died shortly after, on 15 December 1827. Ellis reproduces the textof a letter of 3 March 1828 from the missionaries to the LMS headquarters: 'The fact,that great numbers in this country, both of those actually in the schools, and of those whohave left them, are now able to read, made us exceedingly anxious to employ some meansto provide them with books, on however limited a scale. The disappointment felt on thelamented decease of Mr. Hovenden, you will easily judge of. His life was not spared longenough to put up the press.' However, the missionaries managed to set up the press forthemselves and had commenced printing.

Encouraged by the first attempts we made in the way of trial, we have proceeded in the workand have issued from the press, - 1500 reading lessons, consisting of the first twenty-three verses

of the ist chapter of Genesis, in Madagasse; a small impression of the Madagasse alphabet, forgeneral distribution, to secure, by the king's direction, uniformity in the orthoepy of the language;800 copies of a small volume of Madagasse hymns for public worship; and 2200 copies of a smallspelling-book of sixteen pages. There is now in press, a first catechism, which is nearly finished,and of which there will be 1500 copies; also the gospel by Luke, which is printed as far as the8th chapter. The ist of January, this year, (1828) we employed in finally revising and putting topress the sheet containing the first chapter of Luke... The king and the royal family haveexpressed themselves highly gratified with the introduction of the art of printing into Madagascar,- to circulate among the Ambaniandro, useful and religious knowledge. His majesty sent word,that six or eight youths might be selected to work at the press permanently.^^

Edward Baker was appointed to succeed Hovenden. He left England in May 1828, butby the time of his arrival in Madagascar in September of that year, the political situationhad changed dramatically. Having managed to extend his rule to over two-thirds of theisland. King Radama had died on 27 July 1828 at the age of thirty-six. He had notappointed a successor and the throne had been seized by his first wife and blood relative,who took the name Queen Ranavalona I ('she who has been folded, kept in reserve').Ranavalona had come to power with the assistance of nobles and army chiefs who hadpreviously been removed from position by Radama, and all potential rivals had been putto death. The new Queen and her government took a rather different attitude towardsboth the British and the missionaries. In particular, she was concerned at the growingdominance of British and other foreign influence on the island and the effect that it washaving on traditional customs and institutions, not least the monarchy itself.

Ranavalona af!irmed the importance of education but wanted the missionaries toemphasize secular rather than rehgious teaching, since the latter contradicted traditionssuch as the worship of the royal divinity and the caste hierarchy. The missionaries, onthe other hand, were unwilling to teach if they were not able to preach. In the face ofincreasing political and religious suppression, they began to concentrate their efforts onthe preparation of school texts and other useful books, in addition to their ongoing workon the translation, revision and printing of the scriptures. Aware that their work couldbe stopped at any time, they printed as much as possible. Parts of the scripturescontinued to be printed separately, although some work seems to have been suspendedduring the years 1832-4, when Baker was absent from the island. He returned in July1834, bringing with him a large consignment of books from the British & Foreign BibleSociety. The LMS also sent out a new press and types to aid the missionaries' work.Baptisms had already been forbidden in 1832, and on i March 1835 Christianity wasprohibited. The missionaries were banned from preaching and the Malagasy wereforbidden to become or remain Christians. At that time, several books of the OldTestament remained to be printed but, as W. E. Cousins writes

Thus, even before the whole of the book was in the hands of the people, it was placed under aban: an undoubted testimony to the power it had begun to exercise in the island. The wish ofthe missionaries to complete their work was only intensified by the outbreak of persecution...

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With trembling haste the missionaries went on with their task, and by about June the 21st (1835),the first bound copy was finished ...̂ ^

The missionaries then started to leave the island. Baker being one of the last to go in July1836.̂ ° Malagasy converts continued to meet and to read the scriptures in secret, butpersecution increased and, the following year, a number were put to death. Ranavalona'sreign was seen as one of terror by the Europeans and there is no doubt that it was brutaland tyrannical in many ways. On the other hand, she has also been regarded as a symbolof Malagasy nationalism for her efforts to curb foreign influence and to preserveMalagasy culture and tradition. Missionaries were not to return to Madagascar until1862, following Ranavalona's death in August 1861. By the time of its annexation byFrance in 1896, Madagascar had become home to missions from a variety ofdenominations. There were at least seven presses at work (both Protestant and Catholic),including a government press which had been started in 1869.

The Rev. James Sibree's A Madagascar Bibliography provides information on thesetting up of various of these mission presses in the nineteenth century, in addition tolisting both material relating to Madagascar and items printed there. It also falls into thecategory of early printing itself, having been printed in Antananarivo in 1885 by theLondon Missionary Society Press.^^ The earliest items that I have discovered in theLibrary so far are a catechism in Malagasy, printed in 1828, and a translation intoMalagasy of the Gospel of John, printed in 1829. Other early titles include an 1832 editionof Psalms (with MS. notes by Sir George Grey), a tract on the observance of the Sabbath,1832, J. J. Freeman's Tantara ny Obelina (Life of Oberlin), also 1832, a Madagascarhymn book, 1833 (with MS. notes by the Duke of Sussex), and a Dictionary of theMalagasy Language, 1835. It should be noted that items in Malagasy are housed withinthe Oriental and India Office Collections, while most items in English are placed in thegeneral humanities collection.

As we have seen, the complete edition of the Malagasy Bible was not printed until1835. The Library has two copies of earlier, incomplete, printings, both acquired fromthe sale of the Duke of Sussex's collection in 1844. One copy contains a letter from theLMS missionary J. J. Freeman, dated 29 November 1833, addressed to the Duke ofSussex, who had apparently requested two copies of the scriptures in Malagasy. Freemanaccordingly sent two copies 'so far as they are yet printed', commenting that themissionaries hoped that the complete Bible would be available within a year.

A copy of the 1835 first complete edition of the Bible was acquired by the Library in1890. Garnett thought it of sufficient interest to include in his report to the Trustees on8 April, 1890.

Mr Garnett has the honour to bring before the Trustees an invoice of books, principally rare andvaluable Bibles, offered by Bernard Quaritch for the sum of £106 is 3d. The most remarkableof these books is the Egenolff German Bible of 1534, printed at Frankfurt... Special interest alsoattaches to the first edition of the Malagasy Bible, Antananarivo, 1835, of which the Museum hashitherto possessed only a very imperfect copy. Perfect copies are exceedingly rare, for not only

was a great part of the impression destroyed in the persecution of the Christians, but the copieswhich escaped were usually divided into small portions that they might be more easily concealed.Three copies were combined to make this, which cost the late possessor, Mr Francis Fry *thevalue of 20 oxen there', as he records in a ms note.^^

Bullen was still Keeper of Printed Books at the beginning of 1890 and had written toBernard Quaritch on 13 January, requesting that he bid on behalf of the Museum for tenbooks, including the Malagasy Bible, which were being sold at Sotheby's on 15 January.They were part of a large collection of versions of the scriptures which had belonged toFrancis Fry.^^ On 15 January, Quaritch informed Bullen that he had obtained all tentitles and agreed to BuUen's request that the account be held over until April so that itwould fall into the next financial year.̂ **

In the Library's copy a number of items have been bound in with the Bible. It isprefixed by W. E. Cousins's paper on the translation,^^ and contains two letters fromLouis Street, a translation of the title by Ellen Gilpin, titles for a Lesson Sheet andPsalms printed in 1831 and 1832, and a cancel for Samuel I. A note from Fry, dated 1876,describes the inserts and, as noted by Garnett, indicates that the copy was obtained forhim at a cost of twenty oxen plus expenses. One of the letters from Street describes thecopy as

the first edition of the Bible printed in the Malagasy language, of which the missionaries left about70 copies when they left the island on the outbreak of the persecution. These Bibles were chieflyburied under ground and many of them torn into small pieces so that if part were lost they mightretain the remainder. It is difficult now to get a complete copy of this first edition. Printed at An-tananarivo, Madagascar in the year 1835.

The second letter is a more personal note from Street to Fry, dated 16 September 1875,indicating that he had procured the Bible for Fry and had sent it in the care of Gilpinwho was currently at sea. It was one of the few remaining copies since 'all which werenot buried or hidden away in secret places were destroyed by order of the government'.According to Sibree, Street was editor of the Gazety Malagasy (Malagasy Gazette), amonthly newspaper issued from May 1875 to June 1876, printed by the press of theFriends' Foreign Mission Association. He also appears to have written several works onMadagascar and the Malagasy language, only one of which I have found in the Library,namely his book on the geography of Africa Ny Geography lehibe hianarana ny sarin-taninAfrica^ printed in 1875 in Antananarivo, also by the FFMA press.

'Who can look at the first edition of the Bible, recalling the circumstances under whichit was completed without deep emotion} And those seventy buried bibles too, togetherwith others already in circulation, what a history many a one of them must have had!What a thrilling joy and what deep anguish were experienced by the owners of some ofthem! And what became of them.'' Some Ranavalona I burnt; some were buried;probably the mouldering remains of some are still lying undiscovered, underground',writes Cousins. ̂ ^ One copy is safely preserved in the British Library, its variousenclosures providing us with at least a partial knowledge of its history.

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1 * Samuel Edgerley: printer in Calabar, 1846-1857', Studies in Bibliography, xxvi (1973),pp. 265-70.

2 South African material has been excluded for thetime being since printing from that country hasbeen extensively documented and the strength ofthe Library's South African holdings is wellknown.

3 A great deal has been written on the pros andcons of the mission movement in Africa and itsimpact on the local languages and cultures. Forthe purposes of this article, I do not intend toenter the debate but to restrict myself tobibliographical matters.

4 British Library Archives, DH4/35, ^- 279-280.5 Ibid.6 DH4/35, ff. 426-427.7 Possibly a reference to Georg August

Schweinfurth's Linguistische Ergebnisse einerReise nach Centralafrika (Berlin, 1873}, althoughthe Library does have a copy of this work.

8 DH4/35, ff. 424-425.9 Sir Harry H. Johnston, The Story of My Life

(London, 1923), p. 88.10 Op. cit.11 DH4/35, ff. 426-427.12 Roland Oliver, Sir Harry Johnston (^ the

Scramble for Africa (London, 1957), p. vii.13 The Library has no significant Johnston papers,

most of which are held by the National Archivesof Zimbabwe. However, the Library's NationalSound Archive has some important cylinderrecordings made by Johnston in Uganda, Liberiaand Ghana. The Ugandan recordings, madecirca 1901, are amongst the earliest recordingsever made of music and language in Africa southof the Sahara.

14 DH5/51.15 A Sketch of the Modern Languages of Africa, 2

vols. (London, 1883), vol. i, pp. xi-xii.

16 Bound within Add. MS. 18140. Add. MSS.18117-18141 contain material relating toMauritius and Madagascar, and were presentedto the Library in 1850 by Sir Walter MintoFarquhar, son of Sir Robert TownsendFarquhar, Governor of Mauritius from 1812 to1823.

17 Rev. William Ellis, History of Madagascar, 2vols. (London, 1838), vol. ii, p. 275.

18 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 391.19 W. E. Cousins, The Translation of the Malagasy

Bible: a paper read at a quarterly missionaryconference, April is^^-> ^^73 (Antananarivo:Friends' Foreign Mission Association, 1873), pp.7-8.

20 Baker went to Mauritius. In 1842 he beganprinting the newspaper La Sentinelle, vol. i, nos.2-5 (15 April-6 May 1843) of which may befound at the Newspaper Library. He leftMauritius for Australia in 1846.

21 Sibree, one of the LMS missionaries, wrotenumerous works on Madagascar. In 1875 hefounded The Antananarivo Annual andMadagascar Magazine: a record of information onthe topography and natural productions ofMadagascar, and the customs, traditions, languageand religious beliefs of its peoples.

22 DH2/44, vol. i, f 1890.23 For information on Fry and his Bible collecting,

see David J. Hall, 'Francis Fry, a maker ofchocolate and Bibles', in Arnold Hunt, GilesMandelbrote and Alison Shell (eds.). The BookTrade & its Customers i4so-igoo (Winchester,1997), pp. 265-77.

24 DH4/38,ff. 231-232.25 Fry evidently obtained several copies of this

paper since he had provided the Library withanother copy in 1877.

26 W. E. Cousins, op. cit., p. 8.

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