About the Author: H. Rider Haggard
Sir Henry Rider Haggard was an English writer of adventure novels set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and the creator of the Lost World literary genre. His stories, situated at the lighter end of the scale of Victorian literature, continue to be popular and influential. He was also involved in agricultural reform and improvement in the British Empire.
His breakout novel was King Solomon's Mines (1885), which was to be the first in a series telling of the multitudinous adventures of its protagonist, Allan Quatermain.
Haggard was made a Knight Bachelor in 1912 and a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1919. He stood unsuccessfully for Parliament as a Conservative candidate for the Eastern division of Norfolk in 1895. The locality of Rider, British Columbia, was named in his memory.
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H. Rider Haggard, Patrick Brantlinger
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Paperback, Published in Feb 2001 by Penguin Classics
ISBN10: 0140437630 | ISBN13: 9780140437638
Page count: 368
Drawing on his fascination with African lore and his love of adventure to create a seminal work of fantasy, H. Rider Haggard's She is edited with an introduction by Patrick Brantlinger in Penguin Classics.
On his twenty-fifth birthday, Leo Vincey opens the silver casket that his father has left to him. It contains a letter recounting the legend of a white sorceress who rules an African tribe and of his father's quest to find this remote race. To find out for himself if the story is true, Leo and his companions set sail for Zanzibar. There, he is brought face to face with Ayesha, She-who-must-be-obeyed: dictator, femme fatale, tyrant and beauty. She has been waiting for centuries for the true descendant of Kallikrates, her murdered lover, to arrive, and arrive he does - in an unexpected form. Blending breathtaking adventure with a brooding sense of mystery and menace, She is a story of romance, exploration discovery and heroism that has lost none of its power to enthral.
Patrick Brantlinger's introduction discusses H. Rider Haggard's experience of Empire, and how he took the Africa of fantasies and wove its magic into She. This edition also includes further reading and explanatory notes.
Henry Rider Haggard (1856-1925) was born in Bradenham, Norfolk, the sixth son of a lawyer. In 1875 his father procured for him the post of junior secretary to the Governor of Natal; spending six years in South Africa, he remained fascinated by the country's landscape, wildlife and tribal societies for the rest of his life. Haggard's first novel King Solomon's Mines was published in 1885, shortly after had passed the bar, proving so successful that he was able to move back to Norfolk to concentrate on his writing.
If you enjoyed She, you might like John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps, also available in Penguin Classics.
'It is full of hidden meaning ... the eternal feminine, the immortality of our emotions'
Sigmund Freud
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