Fire Reader

Though best known for uttering the immortal words 'Doctor Livingstone, I presume', the American reporter Henry Morton Stanley had forged a formidable reputation in his adopted homeland (he was Welsh by birth) with his celebrated dispatches from the wild frontier, chronicling the Indian wars which flared up after the Sand Creek massacre in 1864. These first appeared in newspaper form, were later published as a book, and are now republished by Duckworth. Those who have read Dee Brown's splendid 'Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee' may baulk at Stanley's dismissal of the Native American as 'savages'. There is no pretence at objectivity here - Stanley is firmly on the side of 'progress', as embodied by the relentless march westward of the railroad and with it thousands upon thousands of opportunistic immigrants. 'The expectations of the Indian,' writes Stanley, 'cherished now and then as some mad dream flits across his brain, concerning the repossession of the entire lands of his father, turns out repeatedly ephemeral and illusory. As the buffalo and antelope vanish, so will they, and that before many years have elapsed.' He drew the line at extermination, but his compatriots did not, and by the end of the century Stanley's prediction had all but come true. Parts of this extraordinary narrative read like the bloodier episodes of a Cormac McCarthy novel. There is the unfortunate telegraph repair man who is scalped alive by an Indian and lives to tell the tale (and to have his scalp sewn back on). There are vivid descriptions of frontier life, the boredom and discomfort of stagecoach travel, and the ugliness of Indian women (poor Fenimore Cooper gets short shrift from Stanley for his romanticising of the Native American). Throughout, the writing is erudite and articulate, and Stanley's attention to detail admirably scrupulous. The only real complaint one can have, apart from Stanley's unapologetic racism, is the title, which is a bit of a misnomer - Stanley's account ends at the Pacific coast of the USA. However, this is only one in a series of reprints by Duckworth, which include Livingstone's classic 'Expedition to the Zambesi'. There, in Africa, Stanley met a man with few of his own myopic prejudices. (Kirkus UK)