The End of the Game by Peter Beard
BEARD, Peter. The End of the Game. London: Hamlyn, 1965.
First British edition of Peter Beard’s first book. The End of the Game is a pioneering photo book of close studies of the African wildlife that put its author at the forefront of the environmental conservation movement.
This is a uniquely interesting copy, heavily annotated by Col. Ray Nightingale, a British officer who served in the Kenya Regiment and King's African Rifles during the 1950s and 1960s. The annotations contain references of considerable interest, enlarging upon Beard's text, often with first-hand accounts of animals, people and places discussed in this work, including the legendary elephant known as Ahmed of Marsabit; Heekuta Simba, undercover anti-poaching operative, who also served as Nightingale’s Sergeant Major Tracker during the Mau Mau rebelion; Gathura Muita, ex-Mau Mau rebel turned tracker; and Bill Woodley, one of Kenya’s most famous game wardens.
Peter Beard (1938-2020) was an American photographer, artist, and explorer. Beard’s love affair with Africa began at age 17, when he took his first trip to the continent with Quentin Keynes, Charles Darwin’s great grandson. Kenya became his second home when he acquired Hog Ranch, 45 acres of wilderness adjacent to Karen Blixen’s former coffee plantation. He was granted a special dispensation to own land by President Jomo Kenyatta to promote the peoples, flora and fauna of Kenya in his books, photos, films, etc. From 1964-5 Beard worked in Tsavo East National Park, Kenya, and began documenting the destruction of the 8,300 square-mile habitat and subsequent death of over 35,000 elephants.
256 pp, col + b/w photos 4to, original cloth. Small blind ownership stamp of Col. Ray Nightingale to endpaper. In very good dust jacket (lightly rubbed and worn; not price-clipped)