When Daily Telegraph correspondent Tim Butcher was sent to cover Africa he quickly became obsessed with the idea of recreating H.M. Stanley’s famous expedition – but travelling alone. Despite warnings that his plan was ‘suicidal’, Butcher set out for the Congo’s eastern border with just a rucksack and a few thousand dollars hidden in his boots. Making his way in an assortment of vessels including a motorbike and a dugout canoe, helped along by a cast of characters from UN aid workers to a campaigning pygmy, he followed in the footsteps of the great Victorian adventurers.

VINTAGE VOYAGES: A world of journeys, from the tallest mountains to the depths of the mind

When war correspondent Tim Butcher was sent to cover Africa in 2000 he quickly became obsessed with the idea of recreating H.M. Stanley’s famous nineteenth century trans-Africa expedition – but travelling alone.

Despite warnings that his plan was ‘suicidal’, Butcher set out for the Congo’s eastern border with just a rucksack and a few thousand dollars hidden in his boots. Making his way in an assortment of vessels including a motorbike and a dugout canoe, helped along by a cast of unlikely characters, he followed in the footsteps of the great Victorian adventurers.

Butcher’s journey was a remarkable feat, but the story of the Congo, told expertly and vividly in this book, is more remarkable still.

‘A masterpiece’ John Le Carré

‘Extraordinary, audacious, completely enthralling’ William Boyd

‘A remarkable marriage of travelogue and history, which deserves to make Tim Butcher a star for his prose, as well as his courage’ Max Hastings