H. Rider Haggard

j. d. worthington;1316144As for the Lovecraft connection... I've never come across that before said:
She[/B] were remarkably sparse (though favorable), and as far as I know, there's no evidence been brought to light which connects the two./QUOTE] That was Wiki's fault....not mine...;)

I think they were linking King Solmon's Mines to Mountains Of Madness w.r.t to them both belonging to the "Lost World" sub-genre.

I'm not saying they're correct, I just thought it an interesting point. Thanks for the update on that one.
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Interesting thread. I had never really considered Haggard as someone I would want to read, my only experiences of his work coming from the Hollywood and Hammer films. But I have a copy of She and was very favourably struck by the first chapter.

So I've set it aside for my weekend reading... matter. Incidentally, this particular volume is from the MacDonald's Haggard Series, published in the 40's; mine is a 1969 reprint in hardback. Lovely cover.
 
I enjoy The Careworn Horseman's works a great deal. It strikes me that, where they are fantastic at all, they are a sort of anti-fantastic fantasy, if that makes sense. The lost world is found, and its hermetic solitude is lost. The old ways pass, the old magic fails before modern endeavour and daring. Contrast this with the weird fantasy of Lovecraft or Hodgson where the numinous overwhelms the quotidian, or the visionary fantasy of Dunsany, where imagination reigns supreme.

I should try and read one of his lesser-known works in the coming year.
 
A remarkable amount of Haggard repays reading, really. He was so prolific that the overall quality of so much is quite unusual. I have read several of his works over the years, but I have barely scratched the surface, really. I have, however, read quite a few of his early works (Cetewayo and His White Neighbours; The Witch's Head; Dawn; King Solomon's Mines; Allan Quatermain; She; The World's Desire; Eric Brighteyes; etc.) and these are sometimes rather odd; he touches on the fantastic, but often in very subtle ways (e.g., The Witch's Head and Dawn), where it works as much (or more) in a symbolic fashion as a literal one. At the very least, Haggard was almost invariably a good storyteller....
 
Are there any publishers looking to produce Haggard's less well known (but not in quality) works??

I would love to purchase a multi-volume set that collected a goodly portion of his writings.
 
Wildside Press do offer a good list of OOP material - including a generous selection of James Branch Cabell's works - but why must they work so hard on producing the ugliest cover designs eve? I'd hate to besmirch my shelves with these aesthetic atrocities.
 
True but IF it were/is the only way I could get hold of some of the rarer Haggards in new book format then ultimately I'm more interested in what's between the covers. Besides, for the extensive library I have it's more the spine I'm intersted in, hence my love affair with e.g. Penguin Black classics or the SF Masteworks series etc.

Still, I do agree that where possible I try to go for the better looking cover.
 
It's not a question of the better looking cover - it's a question of protecting home, hearth, loved ones and self from atrocities like this:

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Well I admit that is a bit of a shocker! Still if it were the only edn. in existence and I wanted the book then I would still buy it. Of course that brings up the other point about e-books I guess, there you can get the content without having to be burdened in qiute the same way with an ugly cover. I know some people who still print their e-book and create their own cover for the ugly ones OR tac it onto the existing document.
 
Um...you think that's bad?


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Apologies for going off-topic - but I couldn't resist sharing...:D
 
Pish! You're just a little green tentacled sadist at heart....:D

Actually, Mr. G, you can frequently find early (and I mean early! Pre- or early-1900s) editions of Haggard's work either online or in bookshops for reasonable to ridiculously low prices, they often went through so many printings; as, for example:

H. Rider Haggard - Dawn - 1880-1920 - AbeBooks

But most of his work has seen reprint over and over again, sometimes in uniform editions (if memory serves). Keep an eye out, and you might be able to find such a set for a reasonable price....
 
Leonaur press has a good selection of Haggard's works which have covers that, while by no means masterpieces of design, are less of an eye sore. Does anyone know if the text and production quality are any good?
 
I've read about 25 of Haggard's books, including a good nonfiction book called A Farmer's Year.

Some that impressed me: Montezuma's Daughter, She, King Solomon's Mines.

At least of interest (one reading): Nada the Lily, Marie, Child of Storm, Finished (the Zulu saga); Swallow; Eric Brighteyes, The People of the Mist, Heart of the World, Allan and the Holy Flower, The Ivory Child, etc. I think Haggard is usually quite readable when he writes about Africa. Writing about Egypt tends to tempt him to reflections on Life, Fate, Love, etc. that I don't relish.

An off-trail "mundane" story, Dr. Therne, was surprisingly good, I thought.

I didn't think When the World Shook, She and Allan, or The Virgin of the Sun were as good as I'd hoped they'd be. I haven't been able to finish The Ancient Allan and have doubts of ever reading Wisdom's Daughter.

Morton Cohen's biography of HRH is good, and Roger Lancelyn Green had a nice chapter on HRH in Tellers of Tales, although I wonder if he isn't mistaken when he says that C. S. Lewis told him Virgin of the Sun was one of HRH's best. That is an Incan novel, and I wonder if CSL wasn't really thinking of the Aztec novel, Montezuma's Daughter.

I typically download his novels from Project Gutenberg or Project Gutenberg of Australia, reset the texts in a typeface and size that I like, print the sheets, and staple them together with extra-large staples. One of his novels usually comes to three "volumes." However, I have a few old hardcovers of some of his novels that I bought back in the Seventies when apparently there was little interest in them, e.g. an attractive Longmans hardcover of Montezuma's Daughter in bright green cloth with a red "Aztec" design stamped on it, from about 1909, bought for around $4 at the Bartlett Street Book Store in Medford, Oregon, about 35 years ago.......
 
A brilliant writer...a huge influence on just about everything good in early 20th century fantasy (Howard,CAS,Moore,etc). Favourites for me were She,Eric Brighteyes,Morning Star,The Wanderer's Necklace,The World's Desire,Cleopatra,The People of The Mist...there are over 50 of his books free at Gutenberg right now...;)
 
My intro to Haggard was The People of the Mist when I was about 10 years old (the old Ballantine Books adult fantasy line). I loved that book and was actually a little disappointed in King Solomon's Mines in comparison. I haven't read either in decades so my opinion of their relative merits may have changed. I have always wished that someone would do a film adaptation of The People of the Mist instead of redoing King Solomon's Mines for the umpeenth time.

I recently downloaded a bunch of Haggard ebooks to read on my PDA. I never read She so perhaps I'll start there.
 
I've got "She" on my shelf to read as my first Haggard book. Hopefully it will be good...
 
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