After her arrival and welcome at Liverpool Kingsley settled into her brother’s home and wrote her first book, Travels in West Africa, a detailed candid account of her experiences. The book was a best seller and led to a very busy schedule on the lecture circuit. Always trying to enlighten as well as entertain, in one of her lectures she gave the staff and students at a London medical school, a new insight into “Therapeutics from a Witch Doctor’s point of view.” Her stories became popular, and led to the compilation of her second book.

Mary kingsley’s second book, West African Studies, was published by Macmillan, in 1899. At the same time, kingsley became more active in various campaigns against colonial intervention in Africa. As a result of her extensive travels, she came to the conclusion that West Africa was better served by various and multiple traders, “palm-oil ruffians” as they were commonly termed, than the various groups of missionaries and settlers who typically had the ear of the European governments. In addition she defended the local institution of polygamy, “extolled the virtues of cannibal tribes” and supported the local liquor trade, ”you see more drunkenness in the Vauxhall Road on a Saturday night than in the whole of West Africa in a whole week.” Kingsley was quite influential, with direct access to the Colonial Office, and British colonial policy after 1890 showed a greater concern for retaining African social institutions.