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Sir Henry Rider Haggard (1856-1925) |
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Prolific English writer, who published colorful novels set in unknown regions and lost kingdoms of Africa, or some other corner of the world: Iceland, Constantinople, Mexico, Ancient Egypt. H. Rider Haggard's best-known work is the romantic adventure tale King Solomon's Mines (1885), which was inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson's famous Treasure Island. Haggard also was an agricultural reformer and a faithful servant of the British Empire. However, his depiction of other cultures has been considered more complex than was common in contemporary popular romances. "Welcome, white men from the Stars," he said; "this is another sight from that which your eyes gazed on by the light of last night's moon, but it is not so good a sight. Girls are pleasant, and were it not for such as these," and he pointed round him, "we should none of us be here this day; but men are better. Kisses and the tender words of women are sweet, but the sound of the clashing of the spears of warriors, and the smell of men's blood, are sweeter far! Would ye have wives from among our people, white men? If so, choose the fairest here, and ye shall have them, as many as ye will," and he paused for an answer. (from King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard, London: Cassell and Company, MCMVII, pp. 158-159) Henry Rider Haggard was born in West Bradenham Hall, Norfolk,
the
eight son of
William Haggard, a barrister and a country squire, and Ella (Doventon)
Haggard, an amateur writer. In his childhood, the young Henry Rider was
seen as the family
dunce by his father. Haggard was not sent to a good public school like
his brothers, but he was educated at a London day-school,
although privately, and Ipswich Grammar School. At eighteen he fell in
love with Mary Elizabeth "Lilly" Jackson. She married a few years later
Frank Archer, a banker who was caught in
an embezzlement and deserted her. After
failing the army
entrance, Haggard went in 1875 to Natal as a secretary to Sir Henry
Bulwer, Governor
of Natal colony. In he joined the staff of the special
commissioner.
Next year he became Master and Registrar of the High Court in
the Transvaal. Sir John Kotzé, a judge for whom he worked, wrote in his
autobiography: "Those who knew Haggard recognized in him a man of
honour and truth. But his was an extraordinary mind. He was emotional
and much given to romancing. His imagination impelled him into a world
of fancy which for the time had complete hold of his sense, and hence
he described as fact what was mere fiction." (Biographical Memoirs and Reminiscences by Sir John Kotzé, Volume 1, Cape Town: Maskew Miller, Limited, 1934, p. 488) For the rest of his life Haggard viewed with understanding the British colonial policy, sharing in this the attitudes of his friend Rudyard Kipling. saying in an article published in Macmillan's Magazine in May 1877 that "it is our mission to conquer and hold in subjection, not from thirst of conquest but for the sake of law, justice and order." (Rider Haggard: A Voice from the Infinite by Peter Berresford Ellis, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978, p. 58) On the other hand, he also traveled widely and saw the dangers of European intrusion. Thus in the end of King Solomon's Mines Haggard left the lost land of the Kukuanas to continue its own separate development. During his years in Africa, Haggard got acquainted with the
Zulu
culture. Especially he admired the individual prowess of their
warriors: "If he is cruel, he is brave in the battle; if he is reckless
of the lives of others, he regards not his own; and when death comes,
he meets it without fear, and goes to the
spirits of his fathers boldly, as a warrior should." (Cetywayo and His White Neighbours; or, Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal by H. Rider Haggard, London: Trübner & Co., 1882, p. 281) Although
Haggard
himself had been brought up to believe in the superiority of European
culture and the Christian religion, he did not condemn the polygamic
system of the Zulus, writing that "the Zulu women are much attached to
the custom, nor would they, as a general rule, consent to marry a man
who
only proposed taking one wife. There are various reasons for this: for
instance, the first wife is a person of importance, and takes
precedence of all the others, a fact as much appreciated by the Zulu
woman as by the London lady." (Ibid., p. 51) Haggard himself had an affair with a
married woman, Johanna Catherine Ford (née Lehmkuhl); she gave birth to
a child who died. Psychoanalytic interpretations of Haggard's novels have paid much attention to his female characters. Among his devoted reader was Carl Jung, who used the novel She (1887) as an example of anima. According to Jung, the anima is an archetypical form, expressing the fact that a man has a minority of female genes. Haggard's Queen Ayesha is an unmistakable anima type – the ultimate guide and mediator to the inner world. The idea has also connections with the oservations of James Frazer in his classical study The Golden Bough. Also Haggard's idea of a journey into the "darkest Africa," which turns into a spiritual search, has been used my a number of writers, including Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness (1902). The narrator of the hallucinatory She: A History of Adventure
is Ludwig Horace
Holly.
The story depicts an adventurer, Leo Vincey, who receives a mysterious
legacy from his father. He goes to Africa to search the truth behind
the death of an ancestor, Kallikrates. He was an Egyptian priest slain
by an ancient sorceress She-Who-Must-Be Oboyed, queen Ayesha, a
2000-year-old ruler of the Lost World of Kôr. With his friends Leo
travels through dangerous regions and reaches catacombs of the Kingdom
of Kôr. There they encounter She, the white Queen of the Amahagger
people. "I could, however, clearly distinguish, that the swathed
mummy-like form before me was that of a tall and lovely woman, instinct
with beauty in every part, and also with a certain snake-like grace
which I had never seen anything to equal before. When she moved a hand
or foot her entire frame seemed to undulate, and the neck did not bend,
it curved." (She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1887, p. 142)
She tells that her
name is Ayesha. "My empire is of thye imagination," she says. Holly
tries to teach her doctrines of Christianity but she answers: "The
religions come and the religions pass, and the civilizations come and
pass,
and naught endures but the world and human nature. Ah! if man would but
see that hope is from within and not from without—that he himself must
work out his own salvation!" (Ibid., p. 192) She saves the life
of Leo who is dying – he was wounded in a fight with cannibals.
Ayesha sees in him Kallikrates. She promises to make him live forever
if they walk together into a pillar of flame. Ayesha enters the Fire of
Life at the heart of an volcano, and emerges from it
immeasurably old. She dies and asks Leo to remember her in her eternal
youth and beauty. "'Kallikrates,' she said in husky, trembling notes.
'Forget me not, Kallikrates. Have pity on my shame; I shall
come again, and shall once more be beautiful, I swear it—it is
true! Oh—h—h—'". (Ibid., p. 294) Ayesha disintegrates, she is swept back to nothingness. The
story was followed by two sequels, Ayesha
(1905),
in which Haggards asked, "Who and what was Ayesha, nay – what is Ayesha?"
and Wisdom's Daughter (1923). Haggard's novel inspired Baroness Emmuska Orczy's novel By the Gods Beloved (1905). After Haggard returned to England, he married in 1880 a
Norfolk
heiress, Mariana Louisa Margitson. Her father had been Major John
Margitson, a prominent landowner; he had died in 1868. Her mother
already dead, she had been brought up William Hartcup of Upland Hall,
Bungay, and his wife Jane, who was Louie's aunt. The couple moved to Transvaal to Haggard's ostrich farm. When Transvaal had to be ceded to the Dutch, they went back to England, where Haggard continued his law studies. The death of his son in 1891 was a deep blow for him. Haggard was admitted to the bar in 1884, but showed little interest in practicing his profession – he had other plans. After retiring to a Norfolk
country house, Haggard devoted himself into writing. He had earlier
published
a study of contemporary African history. His first books, Dawn (1884) and The Witch's Tale (1884), were
undistinguished. According to a story, when R.L. Stevenson's Treasure
Island
appeared in book form in 1883, Haggard did not think much of it, and
made a five-shilling bet with his brother, that he could write better
one. The outcome, created in six weeks, was King Solomon's Mines,
a story of a group of treasure hunters searching legendary diamond mine
in a lost land. Sir Henry Curtis, Captain John Good and
the veteran hunter Allan Quatermain, accompanied by Umbopa, their
native servant, set off to reveal the fate of Curtis's missing brother
– he has gone to look for the treasure of King Solomon in the land of
Kukuanas. They cross terrifying deserts, nearly freeze in the
mountains, and after a long journey they reach their destination.
Umbopa turns out to be a king, and he wins the villainous King
Twala: "an enormous man with the most entirely repulsive countenance we
had ever beheld. This man's lips were thick as a negro's, the nose was
flat, he had but one gleaming black eye, for the other was represented
by a hollow in the face, and his whole expression was cruel and sensual
to degree. " (Ibid., p. 126) Twala dies in the combat with Curtis. "With such an appearance one is doomed to die a painful death in a Haggard story." ('The Black and White Minstrel Show: Rider Haggard's Exotic Romances' by Marysa Demoor, in Beyond Pug's Tour: National and Ethnic Stereotyping in Theory and Literary Practice, edited by C. C. Barfoot, 1977p. 177)
The adventurers find
Solomon's mines, but are left to die in an underground vault by Gagool,
the horrific witch-doctor. After an escape they find Curtis's brother
and return to the civilization. The son of the king of of Swaziland,
M'hlopekazi (d. 1897), provided Haggard with the model for Umslopogaas,
a Zulu warrior and friend of Allan Quatermain. When he heard of the
success of the novel, he suggested that he receive a share of the
profits. All he ever got was a hunting knife that Haggard had given him
as a present. (The Wordsworth Book of Literary Anecdotes by Robert Hendrickson, Ware: Wordsworth Editions, 1997, p. 120) The adventure tale became a sensation and Haggard's book has been in print ever since. Haggard repeated his success with three novels set in Africa – She, Jess, and Allan Quatermain, all published in 1887. In Allan Quatermain the heroes from King Solomon's Mines, Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good, return to Africa disillusioned with Western culture. Accompanied by Allan Quatermain they journey to the lost land of Zu-Vendis, where Curtis becomes a king and Quatermain dies. However, Quatermain appeared again in several other novels. In Allan and the Ice-Gods (1927) the hero ingests a hallucinogenic drug and finds his mind transported to the body of a prehistoric caveman. The author's fantasy and myth-making later inspired several film directors. Allan Quatermain (1987), directed by Gary Nelson, was a follow up to 1985's King Solomon's Mines (1985), directed J. Lee-Thompson and starring Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone. The favorite adventure novel has been filmed half a dozen times, but none of the films have captured the spirit of Haggard's original work. At the age of thirty-four, Haggard had become a household name. He published one to three books a year, in which the setting ranged from Iceland to the South Seas. Haggard also tried his hand in several forms of the novel: psychological (Mr Meeson's Will), historical (Cleopatra) and fantastic (Stella Fregelius). During his career, he wrote over 40 books. Many of his titles referred to a female character or attribute – Montezuma's Daughter (1894), Pearl Maiden (1903), Queen Sheba's Ring (1910), and The Virgin of the Sun (1922). Although the Victorian age was the first Golden Age of the ghost story, Haggard's sole attempt in this genre was 'Only a Dream,' published in Smith and the Pharaohs (1920), a collection of short stories. With the editor and historian Andrew Lang he wrote a sequel to Homer's Odyssey, The World's Desire (1890). Eric Brighteyes (1891) was Haggard's excursion into the Norse saga. In 1895 Haggard stood unsuccessfully for parliament for East Norfolk. Between the years 1912 and 1917 he travelled extensively as a member of the Dominions Royal Commission. Haggard was an expert on agricultural and social conditions in England and on colonial migration. His books on farming, such as The Farmer's Year Book and Rural England, were based on long journeys through the country and thoughtful research. For his non-fiction, such as The Poor and the Land (1905), and for his government services, Haggard was knighted in 1912. In 1919 he was created Knight Commander of the British Empire. Haggard died in London, on May 14, 1925. He left behind four completed novels. Three of Haggard's siblings – Andrew, Edward, and Eleanora – also published fiction, Eleanora under her married title as Baroness Albert D'Anethan. Like his friend Rudyard Kipling, who celebrated the heroism of British colonial soldiers, Haggard believed in the British Empire. His works are full of action in colorful locations. There his protagonists find exotic, hidden societies, and encounter many dangers and characters with strange powers. In this his works anticipated Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan books, or the John Carter stories set in Mars, in which the lost world idea was applied to science fiction. Haggard's own mythological world can also be seen as a precursor of H.P. Lovecraft's 'Cthulhu Mythos' stories. Although Haggard's novels first were written for adults,
several of
them belong now to the juvenile literature. Some of Haggard's opinions,
especially his
belief of a Jewish world wide conspiracy, have shadowed his later
reputation and otherwise open-minded approach to foreign cultures.
Moreover, the Haggard bloodline included Jewish and Indian relations.
Haggard's diaries, published in 1980, reveal his curiosity to a wide
variety of subjects. His fascination with the Zulu
culture, based on knowledge of history and traditions, can be seen in
his portraits of Umbopa, the rightful king of the land of Kukuanas in King
Solomon's
Mines, and the heroic Umslopogaas in Allan Quatermain, as
well in the
Zulu trilogy Marie (1912), Child of Storm (1913), and Finished (1917). Also in Montezuma's
Daughter,
set in Mexico at the time of the Spanish conquest, Haggard showed
sympathy for a threatened culture. Although married to another, he lived for years close to the woman he had always loved, Lilly Archer, née Jackson. Secrets of Haggard's private life have revealed that behind the mask of a respected Victorian gentleman was a more complex personality than generally has been known. For further reading: The Cloak that I Left: A Biography of the author Henry Rider Haggard by Lilias Rider Haggard (1951); Rider Haggard: His Life and Works by Morton Cohen (1960); Rider Haggard as Rural Reformer by Peter Berresford Ellis (1976); Rider Haggard: A Voice from the Infinite by Peter Berresford Ellis (1978); Rider Haggard by D.S. Higgins (1983); Anima as Fate by Cornelia Brunner (1986); Rider Haggard and the Fiction of Empire by Wendy R. Katz (1987); Children of the Empire-The Victorian Haggards by Victoria Manthorpe (1996); Rudyard Kipling and Sir Henry Rider Haggard on Screen, Stage, Radio and Television by Philip Leibfried (1999); Imagining Africa: Landscape in H. Rider Haggard's African Romances by Lindy Stiebel (2001); H. Rider Haggard on the Imperial Frontier: The Political and Literary Contexts of his African Romances by Gerald Monsman (2006); She: Explorations into a Romance, edited by Tania Zulli (2009); The Sexual Imperative in the Novels of Sir Henry Rider Haggard by Richard Reeve (2019); Beyond Gold and Diamonds: Genre, the Authorial Informant, and the British South African Novel by Melissa Free (2021); Rider Haggard and the Imperial Occult: Hermetic Discourse and Romantic Contiguity by Simon Magus (2021); Conquest and Reclamation in The Transatlantic Imagination: The Amerindian Fictions of Henty, Haggard, and Griffith by Luz Elena Ramirez (2023) Selected works:
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