Henry De Monfreid

Henry de Monfreid (14 November 1879 in Leucate – 13 December 1974) was a French adventurer and author. Born in Leucate, Aude, France, he was the son of artist painter Georges-Daniel de Monfreid and knew Paul Gauguin as a child.

Monfreid was famous for his travels in the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa coast from Tanzania to Aden, Yemen, the Arabian Peninsula and Suez, that he sailed in his various expeditions as adventurer, smuggler and gunrunner (during which he said he more than once escaped the Royal Navy coast-guards cutters).

Monfreid is probably best known in the English-speaking world for the following two books:

Hashish: A Smuggler's Tale and

Secrets of the Red Sea, a book about gunrunning.

His books include

Les secrets de la mer Rouge (1931)

Aventures de mer (Grasset, 1932)

La croisière du hachich (Grasset, 1933)

Vers les terres hostiles de l'Éthiopie (Grasset, 1933)

La poursuite du Kaïpan (Grasset, 1934)

Le naufrage de la Marietta (Grasset, 1934)

Le drame éthiopien (Grasset, 1935)

Le lépreux (Grasset, 1935)

Les derniers jours de l'Arabie Heureuse (N.R.F, 1935)

Les guerriers de l'Ogaden (N.R.F, 1936)

Le masque d'or (Grasset, 1936)

L'avion noir (Grasset, 1936)

Le Roi des abeilles (Gallimard)

Le Trésor du pélerin (Gallimard, 1938)

Charras (Editions du Pavois, 1947)

Du Harrar au Kenya (Grasset, 1949)

L'homme sorti de la mer (Grasset, 1951)

Ménélik tel qu’il fut (Grasset, 1954)

Sous le masque Mau-Mau (Grasset, 1956)

Mon aventure à l'île des Forbans (Grasset, 1958)

Le Radeau de la Méduse : comment fut sauvé Djibouti, (Grasset, 1958)

Les Lionnes d'or d'Ethiopie (Laffont, 1964)

Le Feu de Saint-Elme (Laffont, 1973)

Journal de bord (Arthaud, 1984)

Lettres d'Abyssinie (Flammarion, 1999)

Lettres de la mer Rouge (Flammarion, 2000)

by Monfreid's daughter, Gisèle

Mes secrets de la Mer rouge, 1982, Editions France-Empire