Nope. I do have an edition I'd lend you, but I expect you don't read Danish? Otherwise, the library is a good suggestion.
The thing is, this album will seem really out of character for Hergé, if you read it after the later ones. It was made more in the style of one-gag-per-page than as a complete story from start to finish.
These gags most often hinge on Tintin, the Belgian reporter, saving the day when the natives are too stupid, petty and incompetent to help themselves. He heals the sick, makes Salomonian judgements (cutting a disputed straw hat in two) and defeats the "Babanese" makeshift army (whose artillery consists of an eighteenth-centure musket mounted on a cart) single-handedly - with an electro-magnet. He even by accident tips over the local train, which is so small and weak that it can't withstand a collision with Tintin's car. Thankfully, he directs the passengers in getting their "choo-choo" upright again, and pulls it the rest of the way to the station with his car.
All these feats invariably gets the Congolese on their hands and knees, bowing to the "great wizard" and / or promising to be his servant for life. Hell, at one point, a tribe of pygmyes deifies his dog, complete with paper crown(?) and makeshift throne. To distinguish between the Congolese, since they're all drawn alike, Hergé had to use other attributes like beards, but mostly silly hats. Cooking pot with a doctor's reflector mounted, Prussian army helmet, an old top hat someone sat on, and so on.
A fun exercise is to read Tintin in America as well. This was arguably the last album Hergé made in this fashion, on hearsay alone and without any real research or serious attempt at an album-wide story-arc. If you're an American, you can see for yourself how accurate it is. It involves, among other things, Tintin having to dress like a cowboy to blend in, a gangster / evil industrialist villain, "noble savage" - style Native Americans, finding oil by accident, and a ticker-tape parade.
Oh, and I completely understand your waryness about jumping on some PC bandwagon. Sometimes you see cases that seem completely overblown. But in this case, IMO the album is a perfect example of 30's European colonial attitude (and valuable as an example of that). I don't think this album will harm any kids, but I'd personally wait with giving it to a child until they're mature enough to have a discussion about the historical context. Plus, it's really not up to par with the rest of them, in quality.
To clarify my position, I'm against almost any ban of literature, but I'm for proper perspective - putting a foreword in there or even moving some things to the adult graphic novel section, as has been done.
Which TinTin books would you reccommend I start with before they're all censored?
