Before Indiana Jones, before Tarzan, before every lost city and hidden treasure in fiction — there was Allan Quatermain. This is the complete cycle: fourteen novels and four stories, unabridged, in a single annotated volume.
In 1885, a twenty-nine-year-old Englishman wrote a novel in six weeks to settle a bet. It became one of the best-selling books of the nineteenth century, invented the modern adventure genre, and created a character who would inspire every explorer, treasure hunter, and action hero in fiction for the next hundred and forty years. The novel was King Solomon’s Mines. The character was Allan Quatermain. The writer was H. Rider Haggard — and he was just getting started.
This Erato Press critical edition collects, for the first time in a single annotated volume, the entire Allan Quatermain cycle — every novel, every story, every adventure — organised in five thematic parts with original critical essays and editorial introductions by Henry Bugalho.
Part I — The Foundation (1885–1889) King Solomon’s Mines — The treasure map, the desert crossing, the hidden kingdom, the diamond chamber. The novel that started everything. Allan Quatermain — The journey to the lost civilisation of Zu-Vendis — and the death that haunts the rest of the cycle. Allan’s Wife — The love story the hunter tried never to tell. Maiwa’s Revenge — A woman’s war, fought with a hunter’s gun. Plus three short stories: Hunter Quatermain’s Story · Long Odds · A Tale of Three Lions
Part II — The Zulu Trilogy (1912–1917) Marie — The origin story: young Quatermain, the Great Trek, the massacre, and the first woman he loved and lost. Child of Storm — Haggard’s masterpiece. A Zulu succession crisis and Mameena — the most dangerous woman in African fiction. Finished — The Anglo-Zulu War, the fall of Cetshwayo, and the end of the Zulu kingdom. The title is the translation.
Part III — The Flower and the Ivory (1915–1916) The Holy Flower · The Ivory Child — Sacred objects, hidden cults, and the death of Hans the Hottentot: the adventures that became the template for every treasure-hunting story after them.
Part IV — The Taduki Visions (1920–1921) The Ancient Allan — Quatermain in Ptolemaic Egypt, reliving a past life. She and Allan — The collision of Haggard’s two greatest fictional universes: Quatermain meets Ayesha, She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed. Magepa the Buck — An old Zulu warrior remembers.
Part V — The Last Adventures (1924–1927) Heu-Heu, or The Monster · The Treasure of the Lake · Allan and the Ice-Gods — The final three novels, written by a dying man about a character who is also approaching his end.
✦ Fourteen complete, unabridged novels and four short stories — over 1,500 pages of classic adventure.
This edition also includes: ✦ “Before Indiana Jones” — a critical essay on Haggard’s invention of the adventure genre and the complete Quatermain cycle as a literary project ✦ “Africa and the Imperial Imagination” — the political and historical context of the fiction, from the Berlin Conference to the Boer Wars ✦ “The Man Who Loved Africa and Helped Destroy It” — a narrative biography of H. Rider Haggard ✦ Editorial notes introducing each of the five thematic parts
For readers who enjoy: ✦ Action-adventure fiction and classic treasure hunts ✦ Historical fiction set in colonial Africa ✦ Epic novel series and complete omnibus editions ✦ Annotated classics with critical essays
“A sharp spear needs no polish.” — Kukuana proverb, quoted by Allan Quatermain
