author
Frederick Courteney Selous
1851–1917
A Victorian adventurer whose journeys through southern Africa made him famous in his own lifetime, he was also a careful observer of wildlife and a prolific writer. His life combined exploration, hunting, natural history, and military service in a way that still fascinates readers today.
2 Audiobooks
Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia Being a Narrative of Events in Matabeleland Both Before and During the Recent Native Insurrection Up to the Date of the Disbandment of the Bulawayo Field Force
by Frederick Courteney Selous
African Nature Notes and Reminiscences
by Frederick Courteney Selous
About the author
Born in London on December 31, 1851, Frederick Courteney Selous became known as a British explorer, hunter, naturalist, and army officer. Encyclopaedia Britannica notes that his travels in south-central Africa added substantially to European knowledge of the region later called Rhodesia, while Wikipedia describes him as especially famous for his exploits in southeast Africa.
Selous spent many years traveling, hunting, and collecting natural history specimens, and he later turned those experiences into popular books, including A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa and African Nature Notes and Reminiscences. Accounts of his life consistently show that his reputation rested not only on adventure, but also on close observation of animals and the landscapes he moved through.
During the First World War, he served in East Africa and was killed in action near Kisaki, in what was then German East Africa, on January 4, 1917. His life has often been remembered as larger than life, but the most reliable sources also show a more grounded figure: a skilled field naturalist and author whose firsthand accounts helped shape how many readers pictured Africa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.