Starvard.Starvard.
Hello, my name is Finn, and I'm going to help you understand this book.
Here it is, explained like you are 10:
A map drawn in blood, a desert, a lost kingdom hidden in the mountains of Africa, and the legendary diamond mines of King Solomon at the end of it. Allan Quatermain, an elephant hunter who admits he is no hero, guides the expedition, and Haggard keeps the wonders and the dangers coming in waves. This is the template for every lost world adventure after it, Indiana Jones included.
Allan Quatermain, an elephant hunter who admits he is no hero, is hired to find a lost brother beyond a burning desert, guided by a map drawn in blood by a dying Portuguese explorer. The party crosses the desert, nearly dies of thirst, and finds Kukuanaland, a hidden kingdom ruled by a tyrant and a terrifying witch finder. A civil war, a rightful king in disguise, and a treasure chamber sealed inside a mountain of rock are waiting.
The ideas are greed and kingship. The diamonds matter less than who deserves to rule, and Ignosi, traveling as a servant, carries the real claim and the real dignity. Quatermain keeps puncturing the heroic pose: he is scared, practical, and honest about both.
This is the template for every lost world adventure after it, Indiana Jones included, and it still crackles. Watch how the African kingdom is drawn as a real place with politics and laws, and how the treasure, when it finally appears, nearly becomes a tomb.
Allan Quatermain, a weathered elephant hunter who insists he is no hero, is hired to find a lost brother deep in unmapped Africa. The trail crosses a burning desert and a frozen mountain wall to reach a hidden kingdom and the legendary diamond mines of King Solomon. Haggard wrote the book on a bet that he could rival Treasure Island, and instead created the lost world adventure that a thousand stories have copied since. Treasure, battle, and prophecy keep the pages turning.
The first chapter
The author ventures to take this opportunity to thank his readers for the kind reception they have accorded to the successive editions of this tale during the last twelve years. He hopes that in its present form it will fall into the hands of an even wider public, and that in years to come it may continue to afford amusement to those who are still young enough at heart to love a story of treasure, war, and wild adventure.
Ditchingham,
11th March, 1898.
Post Scriptum
Now, in 1907, on the occasion of the issue of this edition, I can only add how glad I am that my romance should continue to please so many readers. Imagination has been verified by fact; the King Solomon’s Mines I dreamed of have been discovered, and are putting out their gold once more, and, according to the latest reports, their diamonds also; the Kukuanas or, rather, the Matabele, have been tamed by the white man’s bullets, but still there seem to be many who find pleasure in these simple pages. That they may continue so to do, even to the third and fourth generation, or perhaps longer still, would, I am sure, be the hope of our old and departed friend, Allan Quatermain.
H. Rider Haggard.
Ditchingham, 1907.
This faithful but unpretending record
of a remarkable adventure
is hereby respectfully dedicated
by the narrator,
Allan Quatermain,
to all the big and little boys who read it.
Source: Standard Ebooks. Published 1885. Author died 1925. Public domain worldwide. Share this book: WhatsApp