Skip content
Celebrate indie bookstores with our limited-time sale! Shop the sale
Explorers of the Nile by Tim Jeal
  Send as gift   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account
IBD balloon logo

Shop the sale

In celebration of Independent Bookstore Day, shop our limited-time sale on bestselling audiobooks from April 22nd-28th. Don’t miss out—purchases support your local bookstore!

Shop now

Explorers of the Nile

The Triumph and Tragedy of a Great Victorian Adventure

$23.09

Get for $14.99 with membership
Narrator Clive Chafer

This audiobook uses AI narration.

We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.

Learn more
Length 14 hours 58 minutes
Language English
  Send as gift   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account

Nothing obsessed explorers of the mid-nineteenth century more than
the quest to discover the source of the White Nile. It was the planet's most elusive secret, the prize coveted above all others. Between 1856 and 1876, six larger-than-life men and one extraordinary woman accepted
the challenge. Showing extreme courage and resilience, Richard Burton, John Hanning Speke, James Augustus Grant, Samuel Baker, Florence von Sass, David Livingstone, and Henry Morton Stanley risked their lives and
reputations in the fierce competition. Award-winning author Tim Jeal deploys fascinating new research to provide a vivid tableau of the unmapped "Dark Continent," its jungle deprivations, and the courage—as well as malicious tactics—of the explorers.

On multiple forays launched into east and central Africa, the travelers passed through almost impenetrable terrain and suffered the ravages of flesh-eating ulcers, paralysis, malaria, deep spear wounds, and even death. They discovered Lakes Tanganyika and Victoria and became the first white people to encounter the kingdoms of Buganda and Bunyoro. Jeal weaves the story with authentic new detail and examines the tragic unintended legacy of the Nile search that still casts a long shadow over the people of Uganda and Sudan.

Tim Jeal is the author of the acclaimed biographies Livingstone, Baden-Powell, and Stanley, each selected as a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times and the Washington Post. The winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, Tim lives in London.

Clive Chafer is a professional actor, director, producer, and theater instructor. Originally from England, he has performed on stage in the United States at many theaters, including California Shakespeare Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Magic Theater, Utah Shakespearean Festival, and American Players Theater (Wisconsin). In 1993, he founded TheatreFIRST, the San Francisco Bay Area's only internationally oriented theater. He has taught theater at the University of San Francisco and the University of Portsmouth in the UK. His audiobook credits include The Last Lion, part three of William Manchester's epic biography of Winston Churchill (for which he won an AudioFile Earphones Award), Colin Cotterill's series of crime novels set in 1970s Laos and featuring the wonderful character of Siri Paiboun, the country's only coroner, and Cornelius Ryan's seminal WWII accounts The Longest Day and A Bridge Too Far. He gained his Master of Fine Arts in staging Shakespeare from Exeter University in 2000 and graduated from the Drama Studio London in 1983. He has been a member of Equity and SAG-AFTRA for over twenty-five years. He recently moved back to his native England, and continues to narrate, act, and teach theater there.

IBD balloon logo

Shop the sale

In celebration of Independent Bookstore Day, shop our limited-time sale on bestselling audiobooks from April 22nd-28th. Don’t miss out—purchases support your local bookstore!

Shop now

Reviews

"Jeal recounts each perilous expedition to unlock the secrets of the Nile watershed with an astonishing clarity and depth that brings to life the hazardous environs of equatorial Africa." ---Booklist Expand reviews
Celebrate indie bookstores with our limited-time sale! Shop the sale