author
Frank Oates
1840–1875
A Victorian naturalist and explorer, he traveled through North and Central America and later southern Africa, leaving behind vivid journals of wildlife, landscape, and travel. He is especially remembered for his journey to the Victoria Falls and for the posthumous book drawn from his letters and notebooks.
1 Audiobook
Matabele land and the Victoria Falls
by Frank Oates
About the author
Born in Yorkshire in 1840, Frank Oates was a British naturalist and explorer with a strong early interest in birds and the natural world. He studied at Christ Church, Oxford, but poor health cut short his university career and affected much of his adult life.
Even so, he went on to travel widely. In 1871 and 1872 he journeyed through North and Central America, collecting specimens and observing wildlife. A few years later he set out for southern Africa, where he explored the Transvaal and Matabeleland and became one of the first Europeans to record seeing the Victoria Falls.
Oates died in 1875 during that African expedition, still only in his thirties. His reputation rests largely on the letters and journals published after his death as Matabele land and the Victoria Falls, a work that blends travel writing, natural history, and the sharp curiosity of a field observer.