Henry
Rider Haggard
was born in Bradenham, Norfolk in 1856.
He was the 8th son of the barrister William Haggard and
amateur writer Ella Doventon.
Although Henry was called to the bar in 1884, he looks to have followed in
his mother’s footsteps, rather than those of his father’s, especially since
writing novels was what kept him from practicing law.
It probably helped that William Haggard had a low regard for his son
and considered him to be quite dense.
So much so, that Henry was not sent to public school like his
brothers, but to Ipswich Grammar School.
Henry failed the army entrance, but still managed to be sent to Natal
as a secretary to Sir Henry Bulwer, who was governor of the colony.
Thus Henry ended up reading the proclamation for the British
annexation of the previously Boer Republic Transvaal.
1878, he was promoted to Registrar of the High Court in Transvaal.
While there, he became an admirer of the Zulu culture, especially
their warriors. It is rumoured
that he had an affair with an African woman.
Henry returned to England for a while to find a wife.
He married the Norfolk heiress Mariana Lousia Margitson.
The young couple lived on Henry’s farm in Africa for a while, but
returned to England after the British defeat at Majuba.
Henry’s
first 2 novels, published in 1884, did not set the world alight (“Dawn”
and “The Witch’s Tale”). It is
said that when Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel “Treasure
Island” was published in 1883, Henry did not think much of it, and
better his brother that he could write a better book.
Thus was the seed for “King
Solomon’s Mines” laid. The
novel, published in 1885, was a hit.
“King Solomon’s Mines” proved to be inspirational, as it laid the
framework for adventures in exotic locales, with his “lost worlds”
transmuting easily into the “lost planets” favoured by writers of science
fiction. Henry’s African
experiences came to the fore here, and he is especially noted for his
sympathetic African characters (although he has been accused of
anti-Semitism in other contexts).
One of the book’s characters, Allan Quatermain, made an appearance in
several other Rider Haggard novels.
Another of his famous creations, the near-immortal Ayesha from “She”,
was regarded as the perfect model for the ‘anima’ by Carl Jung.
Much of his fiction, which featured heroes traversing through
landscapes that resembles the female figure, revealed Ridger Haggard’s love
of women. Rider Haggard wrote over 40 books in a variety of genres,
including a Viking saga (“Eric
Brighteyes” 1891) and various non-fiction books on rural England.
He attempted to become an MP in East Norfolk in 1895, but was not
elected. However, he was
sufficiently highly regarded to be knighted in 1912.
Rider Haggard died in 1925, but several of his books are still
popular and have been filmed.
As evidence of his prolific output, he had finished 4 other novels prior to
his death. The other titles he
wrote were:
Jess
(1887),
Allan Quatermain (1887),
A
Tale of Three Lions (1887),
Mr.
Meeson's Will (1888),
Maiwa's Revenge (1888), My Fellow Laborer and the Wreck of the Copeland
(1888),
Colonel Quaritch, V.C. (1888),
Cleopatra (1889),
Allan's Wife (1889),
Beatrice (1890),
The
World's Desire (1890),
Nada
the Lily (1892)
Montezuma's Daughter, The People of the Mist (1894),
Joan
Haste (1895),
Heart of the World (1895), Church and State (1895),
The
Wizard (1896), Dr. Therne (1898),
Swallow (1898),
A
Farmer's Year (1899), The Last Boer War (1899), The Spring of Lion
(1899),
Black Heart, White Heart (1900), The New South Africa (1900),
A
Winter Pilgrimage (1901),
Lysbeth (1901), Rural England (1902),
Pearl Maiden (1903),
Stella Fregelius (1904),
The
Brethren (1904), The Poor and the Land (1905),
Ayesha (1905), A Gardener's Year (1905), Report of Salvation Army
Colonies (1905), The Way of the Spirit (1906),
Benita (1906),
Fair
Margaret (1907),
The
Ghost Kings (1908),
The
Yellow God (1908),
The
Lady of Blossholme (1909),
Queen Sheba's Ring (1910),
Regeneration: An account of the social work of the salvation army
(1910),
Morning Star (1910),
Red
Eve (1911),
The
Mahatma and the Hare (1911),
Rural Denmark (1911),
Marie (1912),
Child of Storm (1913),
The
Wanderer's Necklace (1914), A call to Arms (1914),
The
Holy Flower (1915), After the War Settlement and Employment of
Ex-Service Men (1916),
The
Ivory Child (1916),
Finished (1917),
Love
Eternal (1918),
Moon
of Israel (1918) ,
When
the World Shook (1919),
The
Ancient Allan (1920),
Smith and the Pharaohs (1920),
She
and Allan (1921),
The
Virgin of the Sun (1922),
Wisdom's Daughter (1923),
Heu-Heu (1924),
Queen of the Dawn (1925),
The
Days of my Life: An autobiography of Sir H. Rider Haggard (1926),
Treasure of the Lake (1926),
Allan and the Ice Gods (1927), Mary of Marion Isle (1929),
Belshazzar (1930).
King
Solomon’s Mines
– Project Gutenberg ebook
She – Project Gutenberg
ebook
Racist Rider
– A. N. Wilson’s views on this topic
She by Rider Haggard
– Kevin Patrick Mahoney’s essay
Colonial and
Post-Colonial books contrasted: “Mister Johnson” by Joyce Cary, “She” by
Rider Haggard, and the works of Chinua Achebe
– Kevin Patrick Mahoney’s essay
C. S. Lewis and the scholarship of imagination in E.
Nesbit and Rider Haggard – Mervyn
Nicholson’s essay
The Influence of African Spirituality on Rider Haggard
– John Senior’s essay
Murphy, Patricia "The Gendering of History in She"
SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 - Volume 39, Number 4, Autumn
1999, pp. 747-772
The Johns Hopkins University Press
