H. Rider Haggard, KBE (/ˈhæɡərd/; 1856–1925) was a British writer, largely of adventure fiction, but also of non-fiction. The eighth child of a Norfolk barrister and squire,[1] through family connections he gained employment with Sir Henry Bulwer during the latter's service as lieutenant-governor of Natal, South Africa.[2] Rider Haggard travelled to southern Africa in 1875 and remained in the country for six years, during which time he served as Master of the High Court of the Transvaal and an adjutant of the Pretoria Horse.[1]
Rider Haggard's time in Africa proved inspirational for him,[3] and while still in Natal he wrote two articles for The Gentleman's Magazine describing his experiences.[4] He returned to Britain in 1881 and was called to the bar; while studying he wrote his first book, Cetywayo and His White Neighbours, a critical examination of Britain's policies in South Africa.[2] Two years later he published his first work of fiction, Dawn. In 1885 he wrote one of his most popular novels, King Solomon's Mines—detailing the life of the adventurer Allan Quatermain—which was followed by She: A History of Adventure (1886), which introduced the female character Ayesha, both of which became series of books;[a] according to the author Morton N. Cohen, writing for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, much of Rider Haggard's reputation rests on these two works.[2] Although he mostly concentrated on his non-fiction and his novels, he also produced a number of short-stories, which have been released in three collections.[3]
Rider Haggard was interested in land affairs and wrote several works on the subject; in 1895 he served on a government commission to examine Salvation Army labour colonies, and in 1911 he served on the Royal Commission examining coastal erosion. He was an inveterate letter writer to The Times, and had nearly 100 letters published by the newspaper.[1][2]
^Ayesha was a beautiful sorceress who had discovered the secret of eternal life. She is described by The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature as being "a femme fatale", who is "an unattainable and yet eternally faithful lover, at once ravishing, dangerous, magical, all-powerful".[5]
^“The Sexual Imperative in the Novels of Sir Henry Rider Haggard” by Richard Reeve. “Haggard wrote 58 works of fiction and 10 works of nonfiction. It’s important to understand that, during the era in which he wrote, book-length works of fiction were usually classified as either ‘novels” or “romances’. Novels generally dealt with relations between middle class English men and women and were set within English society. Romances were tales of high adventure depicting voyages of exploration and the encountering of exotic foreign societies, locales, and individuals. Though these sorts of works were termed romances during much of the 19th century and the early 20th century, thereafter the term quickly evolved far beyond that meaning into the modern sense of a relationship between two people who are in love with each other, and variations on that theme. When his last book had been published, 11 were classified as novels and 47 as romances." That said, however, many of those listed as romances were neither novels nor romances, but were instead solid historical fiction comparable to, say, Howard Fast's Spartacus, Robert Graves' I Claudius, James Michener's Caravans, and Mika Waltari's The Egyptian. Some of Haggard's books that fall handily into this third category are Cleopatra, Red Eve, Pearl Maiden, Swallow, and Montezuma's Daughter.” Reeve, Richard. The Sexual Imperative in the Novels of Sir Henry Rider Haggard”. London & New York: Anthem Press, 2018. pp. 12-16
