Livingstone's 1840s expedition into Africa, the "Dark Continent", caught the public's imagination. In 1864 he returned to Africa and all but disappeared. Public interest ran so high, that in 1869 the publisher of the New York Herald commissioned reporter Henry Stanley to go and find him. This book is Stanley's account of his adventure, and the moment he found Livingstone, in which he uttered the famous words: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"