David Livingstone

Born in Blantyre, Scotland, in 1813, David Livingstone worked in a cotton mill as a boy and studied whenever he could, eventually training in medicine and preparing for missionary work. He went to southern Africa in 1841 with the London Missionary Society and spent much of the rest of his life traveling, treating patients, preaching, and recording what he saw.

Livingstone became internationally famous for his long expeditions across Africa. He explored huge stretches of the interior, described the Zambezi River region for British readers, and in 1855 became the first European known to record Victoria Falls, which he named in honor of Queen Victoria. His travel writing mixed adventure, geography, science, and strong moral feeling, which made his books widely read.

He was also deeply opposed to the slave trade he witnessed in eastern and central Africa, and that conviction shaped much of his later work. After years of difficult journeys, illness, and separation from home, he died in 1873 in present-day Zambia. His reputation has changed over time, but he remains a major figure in the history of exploration and one of the best-known travel writers of the Victorian age.