Sir Henry Rider Haggard was an English novelist. He was born in 1856 at Bradenham Hall, Norfolk and died in 1925. The son of a Norfolk landed proprietor, he became secretary to Sir Henry Bulwer, governor of Natal, in 1875, and held various other appointments in South Africa, including the mastership of the high-court of the Transvaal; but after 1879 mainly resided in England, being called to the bar in 1884. He made Africa the scene of Some of his novels, and his pictures of life and fighting among Kaffirs and other South African peoples are often more highly coloured than artistic. His first book was Cetewayo and his White Neighbours (1882), but he became much better known by his King Solomon's Mines (1886), and still more by his romantic She (1887), which were followed by Allan Quatermain, Jess, Maiwa's Revenge, Mr. Meeson's Will, Colonel Quaritch, V.C., Cleopatra, Eric Bright-eyes, Nada the Lily, Montezuma's Daughter, Joan Haste, Swallow, a Story of the Great Trek, Pearl-Maiden, Ayesha (a continuation of She), etc.
His tales are strong in incident and adventure, but weak in character-drawing. He greatly interested himself in the agriculture and rural industries of England, and made personal investigations by travel and otherwise, one result being the work (in two volumes) entitled Rural England (1902). Research Henry Rider Haggard
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Research Henry Rider Haggard
