Trader Horn

Alfred Aloysius "Trader" Horn, born Alfred Aloysius Smith (21 June 1861? – 26 June 1931) was a traveller, adventurer and at one point an ivory trader in central Africa. He wrote memoirs detailing the events of his life, originally published in three volumes (1927-29). They caused a sensation at the time and were later reprinted under the title Trader Horn. Among many incidents documented, the books tell of his efforts to free slaves; meeting the founder of Rhodesia, Cecil Rhodes; and liberating a princess from captivity. He was known by a variety of nicknames, most commonly "Trader Horn" and "Zambezi Jack".

This article is about the 19th-century ivory trader. For similarly named articles, see Trader Horn (disambiguation).
Trader Horn (left) with Andrew Dakers, the literary agent for Ethelreda Lewis, in New York City in 1927.

He was born in Preston, Lancashire, England, living a life of adventure which took him to all corners of the globe; through the frontiers of Africa, to Buffalo Bill's America, London in the 1880s, gunrunning in Madagascar, touring Australia and witnessing the Anglo-Boer War. It was whilst resident in a dosshouse in Johannesburg, that he was approached by the South Africa-based novelist Ethelreda Lewis and his memoirs came to be published. He died in a nursing home in Tankerton, Kent and was buried in a cemetery in Whitstable. A silent film exists of Horn,[1] as do recent writings about him online[2] and a biography by Tim Couzens, which through careful research separates fact from fiction.[3]

Complete titles of Life and Works
  • The Life and Works of Aloysius Horn, an "Old Visiter" ... the Works written by himself at the age of seventy-three, and the Life, with such of his Philosophy as is the gift of Age and Experience, taken down and here edited by Ethelreda Lewis; the foreword written by John Galsworthy.[4]
    • Vol. I: The Ivory Coast in the Earlies: the narrative of a boy trader's adventures in the Seventies, through which runs the strange thread that is the History - meagre, but all that is available - of a young English Gentlewoman (Jonathan Cape, 1927)
    • Vol. II: Harold the Webbed, or the Young Vykings (Jonathan Cape, 1928)
    • Vol. III: The Waters of Africa (Jonathan Cape, 1929)
Trader Horn in 1929

Later editions
  • Trader Horn : The Ivory Coast in the Earlies, Penguin, 1938, retrieved 30 March 2015 (reprinted Penguin, 1948)
  • Trader Horn : the Ivory Coast in the earlies, written at the age of seventy-three with such of the author's philosophy as is the gift of age and experience taken down and here, Howard Baker, 1969, ISBN 978-0-09-307940-4
  • Trader Horn the Ivory Coast in the earlies, Association for the Blind of W.A, 1994, retrieved 30 March 2015
  • Trader Horn : a young man's astounding adventures in 19th century equatorial Africa, Travelers' Tales ; Berkeley : Distributed by Publishers Group West, 2002, ISBN 978-1-885211-81-1

Film adaptations

Further reading
  • Tim Couzens, Tramp Royal: The True Story of Trader Horn (Ravan Press, 1992)

Notes
  1. "Camera Interviews - Aloysius Horn".
  2. Cutler, Ian (30 November 2013). "A Philosophy of Tramping — Trader Horn, Part 1". Cynical Reflections.
  3. Couzens, Tim (1992). Tramp Royal: The True Story of Trader Horn. Wits University Press. ISBN 978-0869754160.
  4. Horn, Alfred Aloysius (1927). Lewis, Ethelreda (ed.). Trader Horn. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster. pp. 257-258 – via Internet Archive.


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