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David Livingstone
Book by Christine Nicholls
- GenresBiography
112 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
12 people want to read
About the author
C.S. Nicholls
16 booksChristine Stephanie Nicholls
Editor at the Oxford University Press
Editor at the Oxford University Press
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 25, 2012
A meeting between Shovelmonkey1 and the eminent explorer Dr David Livingstone.
"Ah. Dr Livingstone I presume?"
"Well yes. Why, how did you know it was me?"
"Well as you can see I've just finished this handy pocket biography and it's got a picture of your good self right here on the front cover."
"A biography? About me? How interesting. Might I ask who penned this rather slender tome?"
"Yup, it was penned by one C.S Nicholls. Obviously not to be confused with the better known and more left field M.J Nicholls who you might have seen around on goodreads?"
"Yes, a fellow Scot if I'm not mistaken? So, what does this Nicholl's have to say about me?"
"Well, in a nutshell, you rose from a relatively poor background but through your autodidactic love of scholarship, acquired a medical degree and managed to get a post to Central Africa as part of the Royal Missionary Society, where despite your initial enthusiasm, your ability to convert the local populace to Christianity was rather limited. Instead you turned your hand to exploration, botany, anthropology, geology and geography and set off into the hinterlands. You were the archetypal bear who went over the mountain( for those you not exposed to this The Bear Went Over the Mountain ). You always wanted to know what was round the next corner, beyond the next bend in the river or beyond the swamp and you thought little of dragging your poor wife and four young children along with you. You produced accurate maps and great tranches of literature on life in Africa but ultimately many of your theories about the great rivers and lakes of Central Africa turned out to be wrong. Death by piles (and associated anaemia) was your ultimate fate and Henry Morton Stanley disproved your river theory less than four years after your death."
"Wait.... I'm dead?"
"Ah. Dr Livingstone I presume?"
"Well yes. Why, how did you know it was me?"
"Well as you can see I've just finished this handy pocket biography and it's got a picture of your good self right here on the front cover."
"A biography? About me? How interesting. Might I ask who penned this rather slender tome?"
"Yup, it was penned by one C.S Nicholls. Obviously not to be confused with the better known and more left field M.J Nicholls who you might have seen around on goodreads?"
"Yes, a fellow Scot if I'm not mistaken? So, what does this Nicholl's have to say about me?"
"Well, in a nutshell, you rose from a relatively poor background but through your autodidactic love of scholarship, acquired a medical degree and managed to get a post to Central Africa as part of the Royal Missionary Society, where despite your initial enthusiasm, your ability to convert the local populace to Christianity was rather limited. Instead you turned your hand to exploration, botany, anthropology, geology and geography and set off into the hinterlands. You were the archetypal bear who went over the mountain( for those you not exposed to this The Bear Went Over the Mountain ). You always wanted to know what was round the next corner, beyond the next bend in the river or beyond the swamp and you thought little of dragging your poor wife and four young children along with you. You produced accurate maps and great tranches of literature on life in Africa but ultimately many of your theories about the great rivers and lakes of Central Africa turned out to be wrong. Death by piles (and associated anaemia) was your ultimate fate and Henry Morton Stanley disproved your river theory less than four years after your death."
"Wait.... I'm dead?"
December 22, 2022
on eof my childhood heroes - and this series is a great means of quickly re-discovering.
Read
July 2, 2011I think at one point this was published as David Livingstone: A Slight Biography. Not that Nicholls doesnt view him fairly, tell the good and the bad of the man-he just moves through his life fairly quickly. But if you want to know something about Dr. Livingstone and only want to dedicate 100 pages to that quest, this is a good book to choose.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews