While working in South Africa, Haggard became acquainted with a number of professional hunters/explorers/adventurers who influenced his later fiction; his hero Alan Quatermain is based on two of these in particular: Frederick Selous and Frederick Russell Burnham. He eventually returned to England and became a lawyer, but his real interest was in writing tales of adventure. None of these were particularly successful until King Solomon's Mines, which became an immediate bestseller. Haggard eventually wrote a slew of sequels/prequels as well as a number of other novels. But King Solomon's Mines remains his best-known work. Incidentally, you might recall that I mentioned the movie Gunga Din in my first post on this novel; Haggard was very good friends with Rudyard Kipling, who of course wrote the 1890 poem upon which the film is loosely based.
I'm finally getting back to King Solomon's Mines, at long last. First: a little background information... the novel was written in 1885 by Henry Rider Haggard. Haggard was an Englishman who had started his working career as an assistant secretary to the Lieutenant-Governor of the British colony in South Africa. Stationed in Pretoria at the time (1877) he actually read the proclamation which announced the British annexation of the Boer's Republic of the Transvaal. And we all know where that ended up. While working in South Africa, Haggard became acquainted with a number of professional hunters/explorers/adventurers who influenced his later fiction; his hero Alan Quatermain is based on two of these in particular: Frederick Selous and Frederick Russell Burnham. He eventually returned to England and became a lawyer, but his real interest was in writing tales of adventure. None of these were particularly successful until King Solomon's Mines, which became an immediate bestseller. Haggard eventually wrote a slew of sequels/prequels as well as a number of other novels. But King Solomon's Mines remains his best-known work. Incidentally, you might recall that I mentioned the movie Gunga Din in my first post on this novel; Haggard was very good friends with Rudyard Kipling, who of course wrote the 1890 poem upon which the film is loosely based. Haggard's novel is very much a product of its time. I know this phrase often has negative connotations, but I don't mean it that way. Oh, sure, you can definitely point out examples of paternalism in the book, and those who want to be offended will find ample reason to be, no doubt. Also, Mines was written at a time when no one thought twice about big game hunting- for pleasure and/or profit- so many will be equally horrified by the descriptions of elephants being shot down for their ivory tusks by men who are clearly enjoying themselves. King Solomon's Mines is one of the earliest examples of the "Lost World" genre of fiction, which became very popular in the late Victorian era. This term describes stories which are about discovering/exploring hidden or previously unknown (to Europeans) parts of the world; some other examples would be Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King, Jules Verne's Journey To The Center of the Earth, and Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan novels as well as his The Land That Time Forgot... to name a few. This is another reason why Mines is a product of it's time: it was written during an era when the British Empire was ascendant, and exploring (some would say exploiting) many places in the world previously inaccessible to Europeans... "Doctor Livingstone, I presume?" If you're of the mindset that British colonialism was the worst thing to ever happen, well, your enjoyment of this adventure story will probably be severely limited. I, however, regard it as a mixed bag... were there abuses and evils perpetrated by the Brits and other nations looking to expand their territories and gain land and resources? Of course- please point to any empire, nation, or people who were- or, indeed, are- free from fault in this regard. But, like so many other things in history, colonialism was complicated, with good things about it as well as bad. And to portray all Indians and Africans, etc., as hapless victims of European oppression is to be as paternalistic and condescending as these writers of Lost World fiction are often accused of being- I would argue, more so. This also displays a total willful ignorance of history and human nature the world over. And, despite the criticisms leveled at him, H. Rider Haggard's depiction of Africans in this book is actually rather nuanced... something which I'll discuss more fully in part two of this review.
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