MARK TWAIN KING LEOPOLD'S SOLILOQUY 1905 CONGO AFRICA

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RARE BOOK: King Leopold's Soliloquy a Defense of His Congo Rule, By Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens), Stated Second Edition, The P.R. Warren Co., Boston, Mass. 1905 . "American writer Mark Twain , who wrote a stinging political satire entitled King Leopold's Soliloquy , in which the King supposedly argues that bringing Christianity to the country outweighs a little starvation. Rubber gatherers were tortured, maimed and slaughtered until the turn of the century, when the Western world forced Brussels to call a halt." (SEE BELOW). Book Description: Warren, Boston, MA, 1905. Pictorial Cover. Book Condition: Softcover; Heavy paper covers are attached, and show some wear at edges, with a chip off the front bottom cover. Spine has a chip off the spine covering at bottom of spine. Internal pages have some foxing throughout, mostly at the corners of the pages. Otherwise, Very Good Condition. Second Edition. There is a tipped-in insert from the publishers that says " The publishers desire to state that Mr. Clemens declines to accept any pecuniary return from this booklet, as it is his wish that all proceeds of sales above the cost of publication shall be used in furthering effort for relief of the people of the Congo State. The P.R. Warren Company. Boston, Mass., January 1, 1906 ." (SEE PHOTOS). Leopold II ( French : Léopold Louis Philippe Marie Victor , Dutch : Leopold Lodewijk Filips Maria Victor ) (9 April 1835 – 17 December 1909) was the second king of the Belgians . Born in Brussels the second (but eldest surviving) son of Leopold I and Louise-Marie of Orléans , he succeeded his father to the throne on 17 December 1865 and remained king until his death. Leopold is chiefly remembered as the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State , a private project undertaken by the King. He used Henry Morton Stanley to help him lay claim to the Congo, an area now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo . The Powers at the Berlin Conference agreed to set up the Free State in 1885, on the condition that the inhabitants were to be brought into the modern world and that all nations be allowed to trade freely. From the beginning, however, Leopold essentially ignored these conditions and ran the Congo brutally, by proxy through a mercenary force, for his own personal gain. He extracted a personal fortune from the Congo, initially by the collection of ivory, and after a rise in the price of rubber in the 1890s by forcing the native population to collect sap from rubber plants. His harsh regime was directly or indirectly responsible for the death of millions of people. The Congo became one of the most infamous international scandals of the early 20th century, and Leopold was ultimately forced to relinquish control of it to the government of Belgium. Private colonialism Leopold fervently believed that overseas colonies were the key to a country's greatness, and he worked tirelessly to acquire colonial territory for Belgium. Neither the Belgian people nor the Belgian government was interested, however, and Leopold eventually began trying to acquire a colony in his private capacity as an ordinary citizen. The Belgian government lent him money for this venture. After a number of unsuccessful schemes for colonies in Africa or Asia, in 1876 he organized a private holding company disguised as an international scientific and philanthropic association, which he called the International African Society . In 1878, under the auspices of the holding company, he hired the famous explorer Henry Morton Stanley to establish a colony in the Congo region. Much diplomatic maneuvering resulted in the Berlin Conference of 1884–85, at which representatives of fourteen European countries and the United States recognized Leopold as sovereign of most of the area he and Stanley had laid claim to. On 5 February 1885, the result was the Congo Free State (later becoming, successively, the Belgian Congo , the Republic of the Congo , Zaire , and now the Democratic Republic of the Congo or DRC — not to be confus... read more

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