H. Rider Haggard

1856–1925

56 fiction

H. Rider Haggard was an English novelist born in Norfolk in 1856 whose career was shaped by his years in southern Africa. As a young man he worked in the colonial administration of Natal and the Transvaal, experiences that supplied landscapes, political tensions and cultural material for much of his later fiction. He became one of the most successful writers of late Victorian adventure literature, combining rapid plots with lost civilisations, imperial exploration, warfare and supernatural elements. His work reflects both the imaginative appeal of the British Empire to contemporary readers and the racial and colonial assumptions of the period in which he wrote.

Haggard is best known for King Solomon’s Mines, which introduced the hunter and adventurer Allan Quatermain, and for She, the story of the immortal ruler Ayesha. The Quatermain novels, including Allan Quatermain, Maiwa’s Revenge and The Ancient Allan, move between African settings, imperial conflict and fantasy, while works such as Nada the Lily draw more directly on nineteenth-century Zulu history and the rise of Shaka. He also wrote historical romances including Cleopatra, set in Ptolemaic Egypt, and Montezuma’s Daughter, set during the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Although many of his novels blend history with romance and fantasy, they remain important examples of Victorian historical adventure and of the ways imperial Britain imagined Africa, antiquity and conquest.

Periods and events

Scramble for Africa, 1881–1914 Prehistory Rise of the Zulu Kingdom and the Mfecane South African History Ptolemaic Egypt Country House Society Early Tudor Consolidation Anglo-Zulu War World War I Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire Aztec Empire New Kingdom Egypt Ancient Israel and Judah Reign of Ramesses II

Historical fiction

Historical fiction series by H. Rider Haggard (1 series)

Allan Quatermain in Order

by H. Rider Haggard 14 books 4.3(796)

The Allan Quatermain series follows H. Rider Haggard’s hunter, trader and expedition leader across southern, eastern and central Africa. King Solomon’s Mines and Allan Quatermain describe the end of his career, while the later books fill in his youth, marriage, involvement in Zulu and Boer history, journeys to…