Paul B. (Paul Belloni) Du Chaillu

Born in 1835, Paul Belloni Du Chaillu became famous for journeys in west-central Africa and for writing vivid travel books based on those experiences. He is especially remembered for bringing some of the earliest widely read descriptions of gorillas to European and American readers, which made him a notable and sometimes controversial figure in the age of exploration.

Later in life, he wrote extensively about Scandinavia as well, publishing works on travel, customs, and Norse traditions. That range gives his career an unusual shape: part explorer, part popular author, and part collector of stories about places many of his readers would never see for themselves.

Du Chaillu died in 1903. Today he is remembered less for perfect scientific certainty than for the energy of his storytelling and for the way his books captured the 19th century's appetite for discovery.