Henry Rider Haggart, Who Comes Before Wilbur Smith?

We all know that Henry Rider Haggard (1856–1925) is fully considered, thanks to Ayesha’s cycle — in particular to the best seller “She”, but also to adventurous Gothic tales such as “The Lady of Blossome” — the precursor of fantasy and imaginative literature, like Lovecraft, Poe, Verne and Stevenson.

But have we ever wondered who was there before Wilbur Smith, the hunts, the savannahs, the tribal struggles between Zulu, the adventure novel par excellence? He, Henry Rider Haggard, with his famous work “King Solomon’s Mines”, and the legendary character of Allan Quatermain.

Both in “She” and in “King Solomon’s Mines”, adventure finds its central core in the relationship with wild, uncontaminated and virgin nature but, above all, in the exploration and discovery of hidden “lost ” worlds, in vogue in the Victorian period, created by Kipling, Conan Doyle, Rice Burroughs, and later amplified by Hollywood (think of films like” The Lost World: Jurassic Park “). In Haggard these are caves, containing secrets and mysteries remained unknown to most (how can we not think of the mines of Moria?). All too obvious symbols of descent into the unconscious. It is not surprising that Ayesha’s cycle attracted the attention of Freud and Jung.

There are many topoi of fantastic literature, such as Ayesha’s sudden aging in “She”, which reminds us of Morgana’s in “Excalibur”, or the Spirit of the Flame that brings us back to the final scene of “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark” . Here too it is the abuse of magic that corrupts and destroys instead of vivifying and strengthening. Another topos is agnition, with the recognition of Umbopa / Ignosi as the legitimate king of the Kukuana in “King Solomon’s Mines”.

Henry Rider Haggard was born near Norfolk, where he spent an unhappy childhood because of poor health and learning difficulties. He attended parapsychological circles and was convinced that he himself had extraordinary faculties. He leaved for Natal where he was captured by the charm of southern Africa. He wrote “King Solomon’s Mines” to show that he could invent a story on par with Stevenson’s “Treasure Island”, after some of his short stories had not met the success he hoped for. The novel is from 1985 and immediately became a best seller, followed by “She” in 87.

Rider Haggard travels the world, visits Egypt, like Wilbur Smith, and Mexico, drawing inspiration for new books and learning how to quickly make entertainment and hit novels. Quatermain’s character gives life to other narratives, mostly unpublished in Italian.

Quatermain, called “Macumazahn”, the one who peers into the night, is the model of “the great white hunter”, not anti-colonial but still fair and good with the natives. Infallible but not bloody predator, he always defines himself as “a mild man”, even “a little coward”, and finds the excess of massacre vaguely “sickening.”

Haggard is a convinced colonialist, he feels white supremacy as unquestionable and has certain attitudes of superiority towards the natives. Some hunting scenes have the ruthlessness of those of Hemingway without having their beauty but, at least, without the bloody complacency of the author of “Green Hills of Africa”.

Adventure, little psychological subtlety, no internal conflict, great hunting and war scenes as befits the most typical escape literature. And, however, at times, there is an unusual philosophical reflection on man, on his place in the cycle of life and on his transience.

“Yet man does not die as long as the world, at the same time his mother and grave, remains. His name is certainly forgotten, but his breath still agitates the tops of the pines on the mountains, the sound of his words still echoes in the air; we inherit the thoughts born from his mind today; his passions are our reason for living; his joys and sorrows are our friends … the end, from which he fled, terrified, will certainly be ours too! Of course, the universe is full of spirits, not veiled cemetery ghosts, but the inextinguishable and immortal elements of life, which, once born, can never die. “

Emilio Salgari published with the pseudonym of Enrico Bartolini an adaptation of the novel, entitled “The caves of diamonds” in 1899. Also memorable is the 1950 film with Stewart Granger as Quatermain, and Debora Kerr, although, according to the narrator himself, “there is not a single skirt in the whole story.”