Henry Morton Stanley was a cruel imperialist - a bad man of Africa. Or so we think: but as Tim Jeal brilliantly shows, the reality of Stanley's life is yet more extraordinary. Few people know of his dazzling trans-Africa journey, a heart-breaking epic of human endurance which solved virtually every one of the continent's remaining geographical puzzles. With new documentary evidence, Jeal explores the very nature of exploration and reappraises a reputation, in a way that is both moving and ...

A "highly enjoyable" account of six men, and one woman, who journeyed into uncharted and treacherous African terrain to find the source of the White Nile ( The Washington Post).Nothing obsessed explorers of the mid-nineteenth century more than the quest to discover the source of the White Nile. It was the planet's most elusive secret, the prize coveted above all others. Between 1856 and 1876, six larger-than-life men and one extraordinary woman accepted th...

"A superb biography, not to be missed either by armchair explorers or students of human nature…reveals the famed missionary and explorer as he really was."— Cleveland Plain DealerDavid Livingstone is revered as one of history's greatest explorers and missionaries, the first European to cross Africa, and the first to find Victoria Falls and the source of the Congo River. In this exciting new edition of his biography, Tim Jeal, author of the National Book Cr...

R.S.S. Baden-Powell, who founded the Boy Scouts movement in 1908, was a British military hero during the Boer War and an author, actor, artist, spy, sportsman, and female impersonator. In this absorbing and humane account of Baden-Powell’s extraordinary life, Tim Jeal reveals for the first time the complex figure behind the saintly public mask, showing him to be a man of both dazzling talents and crippling secret fears.Reviews of the earlier edition:Baden-Powell’s life...

'Exquisitely written and wonderfully readable - There are tears, laughter and filial tenderness on every page of Tim Jeal's perfect gem of a book.' Val Hennessy, Daily MailAn exquisite and moving portrait of a deeply eccentric father. Tim Jeal's beautifully nuanced memoir is by turns lyrical, poignant and gloriously funny.'Jeal's prose is so sprightly, his interweaving of time-schemes so skilful, and his 'ordinary' story so touching that his book feels completely f...

For Love or Money was Tim Jeal's first novel, accepted for publication in 1966 while he was still an undergraduate at Oxford. It is the story of temporary gentleman George, who lives as a kept man with Ruth, the older woman he stole from a wealthy peer, but whose relatively comfortable country life is threatened by his difficult relations with Ruth's two sons.'A first novel of genuine merit... Pointed and witty, with good dialogue and brisk backgrounds.' Evening Standa...

Tim Jeal's sixth novel, first published in 1983, recreates the frenetic Britain of the 1960s and tells an enthralling tale of three individuals bound together by a risky experiment conducted amid the pop-cultural ferment of the era. Paul Carnforth is young, wealthy, titled, and alive to the opportunities of his times. 'You don't have to like pop to find it interesting', he tells his sceptical wife. Paul decides to fashion a pop star of his own - as a 'moral swipe', also proof of h...

Ten years after Dinah deserted Harry to marry a friend of his, Harry still loves her obsessively, though his image of her has ceased to relate to her independent reality. Unable to shake this fixation Harry resolves, for the sake of his sanity, to get Dinah back.' Somewhere Beyond Reproach is Tim Jeal's highly readable and often amusing second novel... The writing is sensitive and perceptive.' Daily Telegraph'Jeal is a forceful yet urbane writer who takes ...

First published in 1976, Until the Colours Fade was Tim Jeal's fourth novel, set in 1852 in a Lancashire mill town transformed by the Industrial Revolution. Disenfranchised cotton workers are restless, while landed gentry make uneasy common cause with newly wealthy manufacturers. When painter Tom Strickland encounters the combustible Magnus Crawford, lately returned from military service abroad, he is drawn into a web of local hatreds and intrigues that will lead to an epic conclu...

Derek Cushing - thirtyish, balding, unassuming archivist/researcher into European expansion in East Africa - is also the son of Gilbert, father of Giles, and husband of Diana. On the last count, though, he has begun to fear that he is wearing cuckold's horns. His plan for addressing the crisis leads him to take his wife, son and ageing father to stay at the Cornish mansion of the smooth-talking gallery owner he believes to be his wife's lover. But this, at least, is a place where disputes ...

It is 1941. Only child Leo invites schoolfriend Justin to stay the summer on the western tip of Cornwall. Addicted to adventure tales, one night they swim out to investigate a supposed 'spy ship' moored off the coast. The outcome is unnerving for the boys but momentous for Leo's mother Andrea, bringing her into contact with Lieutenant Commander Mike Harrington.'Tim Jeal is a great storyteller... Deep Water is not only an extremely gripping novel, it is also thought-provoki...

In The Missionary's Wife (1996) - his return to historical fiction - Tim Jeal expertly evoked Africa in the 1890s: a continent in turmoil as a horde of prospecters, hunters and missionaries scramble after gold, ivory, and converts. Young Englishwoman Clara Musson, though, travels with a different purpose. Jilted in love, doubting her Christian faith, she hoped to find renewed meaning as the wife of charismatic missionary Robert Haslam. What she finds is an obsessive zeal that will...