Invisible Ink no 309: Henry Rider Haggard

It shocks me to include the dashing H Rider Haggard here, but having run the usual recognition test on 20 readers, I must conclude that he’s no longer a household name. The magic and mysticism of lost worlds held special appeal for the intrepid Victorian explorers of unknown lands.

Haggard was born in 1856 to a barrister and a poet, and descended from Danish stock.

His father had no faith in him, and Henry drifted into psychical research before heading to the Transvaal. He returned, married, and was called to the bar, but did not enjoy following his father’s path and turned to writing.

The grand adventurers he’d met in South Africa left a lasting impression, but his first two attempts to replicate their accounts in novel form flopped.

Then came King Solomon’s Mines (1885), which he wrote as a response to the success of Stevenson’s Treasure Island.

It benefited from a huge marketing campaign proclaiming it “the most amazing story ever written”. This search for a missing brother in uncharted Africa caught the public imagination. In it, Haggard disingenuously plagiarised a non-fiction writer, the Scottish explorer Joseph Thomson, who published his own novel in response, but that failed.

Haggard’s hero, Allan Quatermain, ended up starring in a series of novels, and became the model for Indiana Jones because his character rights had been allowed to pass into the public domain.

His next novel, She, about a beautiful ageless sorceress, was a smashing success, and by 1965 had sold 83 million copies. Another, Nada the Lily, was unusual for having an entirely black cast. Surprisingly, given their colonialist roots, Haggard’s novels showed strong sympathy for native populations.

Broadening his interests to Zulus and Vikings, he produced 67 novels and 10 non-fiction works, but his lasting tales involved “She-who-must-be-obeyed”. Ayesha’s story became one of the bestselling novels of all time. What’s less well-known is that Haggard combined her and Quartermain in 1921’s She and Allan, which also adds in Umslopogaas, the hero of Nada The Lily.

Filled with cannibals, cults, reincarnation, sacrifices, and supernatural storms, it’s surprisingly modern in style and undemandingly enjoyable. It seems inevitable that Haggard and Rudyard Kipling became friends, but Haggard’s prose tended toward bloodthirsty wizardry bordering on pulp, and most of his works disappeared from shelves.

Although his entire output is online for less than two pounds, Oxford World Classics publish a smart new edition of King Solomon’s Mines on 4 February.