John Henry Patterson, The Man-Eaters of Tsavo ***

I followed up my first Kindle book with what appears to be my first print-on-demand book.

The Man-Eaters of Tsavo is a non-fiction adventure story written in 1907. The title refers to a pair of lions that terrorized a railway construction crew in East Africa until the author managed to hunt them down. Patterson was a railway engineer, and the book covers that discipline a little while focusing on his hunting exploits. Patterson is a good writer in the Victorian style, which means sentences like this one, which comes after his borrowed gun misfires:

Bitterly did I anathematise the hour in which I had relied on a borrowed weapon, and in my disappointment and vexation I abused owner, maker, and rifle with fine impartiality. (p 31)

The first third of the book, which describes the man-eater's reign of terror, is a taut, exciting story. The remainder, which covers the rest of his time in Africa, is interesting but less involving. I'd give the first third a four star rating.

I read the book in an edition that was remarkably free of any of the usual paraphernalia. No copyright page, no author bio, no introduction to provide context. The front cover has just the author name and title over a color picture that is unrelated to the contents. The back cover says, "This collection serves as a vessel to carry forth the light shed by the greatest writers the world has ever known," without any indication of what collection we're talking about. Finally, I noticed this on the bottom of the final page:

Made in the USA
Lexington, KY
17 December 2011

It felt appropriate to read this story from another world in an edition that preserved an element of mystery about its provenance.

One last note about this story. As it happens, back in 1974 at the age of 11, I read the Reader's Digest Condensed Book version of an obscure novel titled Lion in the Evening. It was the story of a railroad crew being attacked by a pair of man-eating lions. The surrounding plot didn't thrill me, but I've always remembered the mood that descended on the men as evening fell. (I also learned the word "escarpment" from this book.) Now I've read the true story on which that book was based. Coincidence, eh?