On the edge of the primeval forest

Filled with tales of adventure in an exotic land, one that has long since vanished, this book can be read as just another colonial Africa travel/adventure book. What makes it so much more is the unique character of the adventurer and story-teller himself, Dr. Albert Schweitzer. Already famous as a musician, theologian, philosopher and writer, in 1913 Schweitzer left a comfortable life among the intellectual elite of Europe to pursue a difficult path of personal service to the suffering natives of what was then French Equatorial Africa (present-day Gabon). What he accomplished there as a "jungle doctor" would later earn him the Nobel Peace Prize of 1952 as well as inspire others to pursue their own paths of service.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.