author
Percy Amaury Talbot
1877–1945
Known for vivid firsthand writing about southern Nigeria, this British anthropologist and collector turned years of fieldwork into books that still interest readers of history and ethnography. His work blends observation, travel, and a colonial-era record of people, beliefs, and daily life.
1 Audiobook
Some Nigerian fertility cults
by Percy Amaury Talbot
About the author
Born in 1877, Percy Amaury Talbot was a British anthropologist, colonial civil servant, and botanical collector whose career was closely tied to work in Nigeria. He is remembered for writing detailed studies of southern Nigerian peoples and customs, including books such as In the Shadow of the Bush, Life in Southern Nigeria, and The Peoples of Southern Nigeria.
Talbot’s research grew out of direct experience in the field, and his writings became part of the early English-language record on the history, religions, and social life of communities in the region. He also worked as a plant collector, and sources note that his wife, Dorothy Amaury Talbot, was an ethnographer and collector as well.
For modern listeners, Talbot’s books offer both rich descriptive material and a clear window into the attitudes of his time. He died in 1945.