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  • Haggard on the Imperial Frontier
  • J. Randolph COX
Gerald Monsman. H. Rider Haggard on the Imperial Frontier: The Political and Literary Contexts of His African Romances. Greensboro: ELT Press, 2006. ix + 294 pp. Original Paperback $40.00

When Henry Rider Haggard wrote King Solomon's Mines in 1885 he was only trying to write an adventure novel for boys that would be better than Treasure Island. He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Earlier that year he had determined to return to his law studies and forget about being a writer. He had published some articles and three books (a history of the Zulu Wars, Cetawayo and His White Neighbours; and two novels, Dawn and The Witch's Head), but they had not sold well and he felt he was wasting his time. When his brother bet him that he couldn't write anything half as good as Stevenson's novel, Haggard set out to win the bet and in the space of six weeks he had written what became one of the best-selling adventure novels of the late nineteenth century and one of the two books by which he is still remembered today. Two years later, again in the space of six weeks, he [End Page 457] wrote the second memorable novel, a story of magic and reincarnation about a 2,000-year-old queen, She.

Literary historians and critics have expended a considerable amount of ink attempting to explain the phenomenon and Haggard was never to be quite as inspired again, in spite of writing over forty additional novels by the time of his death in 1925. It is generally understood that his fiction was based on his own experiences in Africa as well as his subconscious imagination and fueled by his reading. In this first book-length study of the African novels, Gerald Monsman has taken a fresh look at that part of Haggard's fiction and considered them not as mere adventure stories, but as colonial fiction to be compared with the work of such Anglo-African writers as Bertram Mitford and Olive Schreiner. Monsman finds Haggard's work can be best understood in the context of the conflict of three worlds of African culture: the British, the Boer, and the Zulu. Therefore his initial chapters establish that context by discussing Haggard's years in Africa as well as his growing reputation as a novelist.

That first chapter includes an extensive and necessary history of the British role in Africa and the kinds of writers on Africa whose viewpoints reflect both colonial and postcolonial events: the indigenous writers like Chinua Achebe; those, like Joseph Conrad, who wrote largely from the outside; and those with extensive experience in Africa like Isak Dinesen and, of course, H. Rider Haggard.

Monsman argues that Haggard's style, usually the subject of much criticism, is a lot better and more effective than generally believed. His plain, prosaic style was often the real speech of contemporary life and while it may be unremarkable, it doesn't impede the progress of his stories, and, in fact, it tends to make some of the more outrageous incidents seem plausible. The novels often open with incidents suggesting great promise to come, but conclude with horrific disasters that expose the reader to new experiences. Allan Quatermain (who appears in eighteen of Haggard's novels and short stories) is used as an example of the complexity with which Haggard depicted his characters. Quatermain is not the stereotypical great white hunter of the Hemingway model, large and unquestionably bold and brave, but short and timid. Quatermain describes himself by contrast to Sir Henry Curtis as "a small, withered, yellow-faced man of sixty-three, with thin hands, large brown eyes, a head of grizzled hair cut short and standing up like a half-worn scrubbing brush." [End Page 458]

The author continues with a chapter largely devoted to an analysis of King Solomon's Mines and establishes the debt Haggard owed to his friend Fred Fynney (Natal border agent and inspector of native schools) and his 1880 book Zululand and the Zulus. Monsman cites several specific works on ritual and myth that he suggests as possible sources for...

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