Edward James Glave (1862 - 1894)
Edward Glave was born in England and turned to world exploration to advance his societal standing. In 1883, he served three years in the Congo with explorer Henry Morton Stanley. He spent three years on a riverboat for an ivory-trading company on the Upper Congo River. The accounts of his travels were said to be the inspiration for Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.1)
In 1890, Glave was engaged by Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper to explore remote regions of Alaska. A series of Glave’s articles in the newspaper describe his trips into the Alsek country in 1890. In 1891, Glave financed a second trip to the area with Jack Dalton and published a series of articles in Century Magazine. Glave also created notebooks, sketch maps, word lists, photographs and sketches. This material was collected in 1977 by the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Glave recorded the local place names in the region and the personal names of the people he met along the route.2)
Glave returned to Africa in 1893 and, funded by Century Magazine, travelled to Anzzibar and then made his way to the mainland. He walked north through East Africa to the head of the Congo River and then downriver to the Atlantic coast. He again meticulously recorded accounts from the people he met. Glave gave his notebooks to a missionary at the mouth of the Congo just before he died.3)