Allan Quatermain is a Victorian Indiana Jones - he triumphs over deserts, snowy mountains, tribal warfare and witches, and unearths the mythical treasure of King Solomon's mines.

This faithful but unpretending record of a remarkable adventure is hereby respectfully dedicated by the narrator to all the big boys and little boys who read it. I offer apologies for my blunt way of writing. I can but say in excuse of it that I am more accustomed to handling a rifle than a pen. This is the strange history of our journey into the heart of Kukuanaland; a trek into the interior of the dark continent to find a lost friend and discover the diamond mines of King Solomon.In the course of a long life of close shaves, I never had such shaves as those which I have recently experienced.

- Allan Quatermain, of Durban, Natal, Gentleman

'One of the great page-turners in English literature' Guardian

Allan Quatermain is a Victorian Indiana Jones - he triumphs over deserts, snowy mountains, tribal warfare and witches, and unearths the mythical treasure of King Solomon's mines.

About the Author
Henry Rider Haggard was born in Norfolk in 1856. His post of junior secretary to the Lieutenant-Governor of Natal, Sir Henry Bulwer meant that he travelled and he spent six years in South Africa . Haggard was bet by his brother that he could not write as good a novel as Stevenson's Treasure Island. The result of this bet was Haggard's 1885 book, King Solomon's Mines. It became a runaway bestseller so Haggard was able to leave London and concentrate on his writing. He published She in 1887. Andrew Lang thought She was 'one of the most astonishing romances I ever read. The more impossible it is, the better you do it, till it seems like a story from the literature of another planet'. Haggard died in 1925.

Reviews
One of the great page-turners in English literature -- John Sutherland * Guardian *
I can distinctly remember handling the book as if it might somehow give me, a boy in Africa, magical access to the African adventures it contained. It still does now. I need only pick up this book and, like the door to Solomon's treasure chamber, a mass of stone rises from the floor and vanishes into the rock above -- Giles Foden * Guardian *



Book Information
ISBN 9780099582823
Author Rider Haggard
Format Paperback
Page Count 352
Imprint Vintage Classics
Publisher Vintage Publishing
Weight(grams) 245g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 21mm