8vo. 148pp. Original publisher's blind-stamped brown cloth, lettered in gilt to spine. A trifle rubbed and marked, spine sunned.

The provincially published sole edition of an English translation of Les bagnes d'Afrique, histoire de la transportation de décembre (London, 1853) by French journalist Charles Ribeyrolles (1812-1860). Following the coup d'état of 1851, which installed Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte as Emperor of the French, Ribeyrolles, a staunch republican, fled into exile, ultimately settling in Jersey alongside fellow critiques of the newly established regime, including among their number Victor Hugo. This experience led to the publication of Les bagnes d'Afrique, a vehement denunciation of the abhorrent conditions suffered by political prisoners in French penal colonies. The book is facetiously dedicated to Bonaparte, and does little to temper the vitriol Ribeyrolles had toward the emperor: 'It is to you, Sir, that I dedicate these few pages, dictated by transportation and collected by exile; they belong to you of right: for this is yet another leaf stained with blood, a book of sorrows, a legend of the arena, and, you know well, the spoils of martyrs always return to the executioner'.

OCLC and COPAC combined record copies at just seven locations (Birmingham, BL, Cambridge, Indiana, Leicester, LCP, and South Africa Library of Parliament).