Monarch of All I Survey

Reviews / Votes

The editors of this selected but unexpurgated presentation of Sir Charles Rey's diaries make the modest claim that they constitute an invaluable record of the actions and thoughts of a colonial administrator. So they do, but of a most extraordinary colonial administrator. On a first reading Rey's eccentricity and individuality bursts out in the exuberant excesses of his prose style. That body of pestilent dogs, the London Missionary Society, is a characteristic, and relatively restrained, example. The publisher's blurb makes a fully justified boast of Rey's dashing colloquial style, his engaging humour and frankness, his entertaining vividness. Rey was undoubtedly a character and his diaries make a jolly good read ... Yet as one looks through the book again it becomes clear that Rey's true peculiarity lay not in any quirks of humour but in his intense seriousness. - -- Terence Ranger * JOURNAL OF AFRICAN HISTORY *