I got this for 6 bucks, in a huge barnes and noble in the city. I also ran into a friend, which almost never happens for me.
The book itself however..
I really was not sure what to expect, I have read a lot of books from around the time this book was written, and often the subject of natives is treated as sensitively as an episode of johnny quest. So I expected to find a lot of use of "nigger" and it is in the book, once. When the main character explains his refusal to use the word. this being written in the 1880s. I have read books from the 20s that had a less modern view. So i was happily surprised that I would not have to suffer through the pseudo-shame you get from reading that. Not to say the book did not have its stereotypes, its just obvious the main character and the author have some respect for africa.

The story is pretty well known, how many movies have they made? (6 i looked it up) they go off looking for a lost brother, and find death, diamonds and a king along the way. There were of course the crazy coincidences happening, as they always do in this pulpy sort of work, but that did not make it any less fun. It is all in the tradition of indiana jones, in fact Indy is an off shoot of allan quartermain.

Some things I thought especially cool, the cover of this edition shows a few zulu warriors. I know that is what they are, i saw the Michael Caine Movie. Now I have a low opinion of peoples view of history, so I immediately thought, they just stuck this picture on here, Zulus have nothing to do with this. I thought this because of past experience, an Ethiopian restaurant i went to had pictures of Massai up on the wall(two different parts of africa and very different peoples) but in this case the cover art was good. the natives in the book are similar to the zulu, in organization and dress, and even language. but not in all ways, such as iron shields.

the book was fun, i liked it