White Hunters: The Golden Age of African Safaris

Brian Herne’s White Hunters: The Golden Age of African Safaris is the story of seventy years of African adventure, danger, and romance.

East Africa affects our imagination like few other places: the sight of a charging rhino goes directly to the heart; the limitless landscape of bony highlands, desert, and mountain is, as Isak Dinesen wrote, of unequalled nobility.

White Hunters re-creates the legendary big-game safaris led by Selous and Bell and the daring ventures of early hunters into unexplored territories, and brings to life such romantic figures as Cape-to-Cairo Grogan, who walked 4,000 miles for the love of a woman, and Dinesen’s dashing lover, Denys Finch. Witnesses to the richest wildlife spectacle on the earth, these hunters were the first conservationists. Hard-drinking, infatuated with risk, and careless in love, they inspired Hemingway’s stories and movies with Clark Gable and Gregory Peck.

Brian Herne, formerly a professional hunter, founded the international professional hunters’ magazine Track, and has written for numerous magazines, including Outdoor Life, Petersen’s Hunting, Safari Times, and African Life. He lives in San Diego, California.