Stanley's expeditions across Africa - the finding of Livingstone, the descent of the Congo, the relief of Emin Pasha - compiled for American readers while the events were still news. Headley wrote fast popular histories and drew on Stanley's own dispatches. The book carries the enthusiasm of the moment, and the cost to the porters is visible between the lines. Fifty-nine plates range from Baines's canoes and Peeters's icebergs to Bierstadt's Yellowstone falls, a painted atlas of the wild places Stanley crossed.