Henry Rider Haggard

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Henry Rider Haggard
Image:HRiderHaggard.jpg
Born June 22 1856(1856-06-22)
Norfolk, England
Died May 14 1925 (aged 68)
London, England
Occupation Novelist, scholar
Nationality British
Writing period 19th & 20th century
Genres Adventure ; Fantasy ; Fables ; Romance ; Science Fiction ; History
Subjects Africa
Debut works Dawn (1884)
Allan Quatermain Series
Ayesha Series
Influences Robert Louis Stevenson ; Rudyard Kipling
Influenced Edgar Rice Burroughs, C.S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Carl Jung, Joseph Conrad
Website http://www.riderhaggardsociety.org.uk (Rider Haggard Society)
Biography Portal

Sir Henry Rider Haggard KBE (June 22, 1856 – May 14, 1925), born in Norfolk, England, was a Victorian writer of adventure novels set in exotic locations.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Henry Rider Haggard was born at Bradenham, Norfolk, to Sir William Meybohm Rider Haggard, a barrister, and Ella Doveton, an author and poet. He was the eighth of ten children. He was initially sent to Garsington Rectory in Oxfordshire to study under Reverend H.J. Graham, but unlike his older brothers who graduated from various Public Schools, he ended up attending Ipswich Grammar School[1]. This was because his father, who regarded him as somebody who was not going to amount to much, could no longer afford to maintain his expensive private education. After failing his army entrance exam he was sent to a private ‘crammer’ in London to prepare for the entrance exam for the British Foreign Office[1], for which he never sat.

Instead Haggard’s father sent him to Africa in an unpaid position as assistant to the secretary to Lieutenant-Governor of Natal Sir Henry Bulwer. It was in this role that Haggard was present in Pretoria for the official announcement of the British annexation of the Boer Republic of the Transvaal. In fact, Haggard raised the Union Flag and read out much of the proclamation following the loss of voice of the official originally entrusted with the duty[2].

As a young man, Haggard fell deeply in love with Lilith Jackson, who he intended to marry once he obtained paid employment in South Africa. In 1878 he became Registrar of the High Court in the Transvaal, but when he sent his father a letter telling him that he intended to return to England in order to marry Lilith Jackson, his father replied that he forbade it until he had made a career for himself. In 1879 he heard that Lilith had married someone else. When he eventually returned to England, he married a friend of his sister, Mariana Louisa Margitson, and brought her back to Africa. Later they had a son named Jock (who died of measles at age 10) and three daughters, Angela, Dorothy and Lilias, who became an author. She edited The Rabbit Skin Cap, and wrote a biography of her father entitled The Cloak That I Left.

Returning again to England in 1882, the couple settled in Ditchingham, Norfolk. Later he lived in Kessingland and had connections with the church in Bungay, Suffolk. He turned to the study of law and was called to the bar in 1884. His practice of law was somewhat desultory, and much of his time was taken up by the writing of novels. Heavily influenced by the larger-than-life adventurers he met in Colonial Africa (most notably Frederick Selous and Frederick Russell Burnham), the great mineral wealth discovered in Africa, and the ruins of ancient lost civilizations in Africa such as Great Zimbabwe, Haggard created his Allan Quatermain adventures.[3][4] Three of his books, The Wizard (1896), Elissa; the doom of Zimbabwe (1899), and Black Heart and White Heart; a Zulu idyll (1900), are dedicated to Burnham's daughter, Nada, the first white child born in Bulawayo; she had been named after Haggard's 1892 book Nada the Lily.[5]

Years later, when Haggard was a successful novelist, he was contacted by his former love, Lilith Jackson. She had been deserted by her husband, who had left her penniless and infected with syphilis, from which she eventually died. Haggard paid her medical bills. These details were not generally known until the publication of Haggard's 1983 biography by D. S. Higgins.

Haggard was heavily involved in agricultural reform and was a member of many commissions on land use and related affairs, work that involved several trips to the Colonies and Dominions. He was made a Knight Bachelor in 1912 and a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1919. He stood unsuccessfully for parliament as a candidate for the Conservative Party.

[edit] Writing career

While his novels contain many of the attitudes common to British colonialism, they are unusual for the degree of sympathy with which he often treats the native populations. Africans often serve heroic roles in his novels, though the protagonists are typically, though not invariably, European. A notable example is Ignosi, the rightful king of Kukuanaland in King Solomon's Mines. Having developed an intense mutual friendship with the three Englishmen who help him reclaim his throne, he accepts their advice and abolishes witch hunts and arbitrary capital punishment.

Haggard is most famous as the author of the best-selling novel King Solomon's Mines, as well as many others such as She, Ayesha (sequel to She), Allan Quatermain (sequel to King Solomon's Mines), and the epic Viking romance, Eric Brighteyes.

Though Haggard is no longer as popular as he was when his works appeared, his books are still read with enjoyment today. Moreover, Ayesha, the female protagonist of She, has been cited as a prototype by both Sigmund Freud in The Interpretation of Dreams and by Carl Jung. Allan Quatermain, the hero of King Solomon's Mines and its sequel Allan Quatermain, has influenced the American film character Indiana Jones, featured in the films Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Haggard's Lost World genre influenced the popular American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs. Quatermain has gained recent popularity thanks to being a main character in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Haggard also wrote about agricultural and social issues reform, in part inspired by his experiences in Africa, but also based on what he saw in Europe.

[edit] Chronology of works

Publication dates unknown

[edit] Allan Quatermain series

[edit] Ayesha Series

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Butts, Dennis; H. Rider Haggard [2006]. "Introduction and Chronology", in Dennis Butts: King Solomon’s Mines (in English). Oxford University Press, vii-xxviii. 
  2. ^ Pakenham, T. (1992) The Scramble for Africa: White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876-1912, Avon Books, New York. ISBN-10 0380719991.
  3. ^ Mandiringana, E.; T. J. Stapleton (1998). "The Literary Legacy of Frederick Courteney Selous". History in Africa 25: 199-218. doi:10.2307/3172188.
  4. ^ Pearson, Edmund Lester. Theodore Roosevelt, Chapter XI: The Lion Hunter (HTML) (English). Humanities Web. Retrieved on 2006-12-18.
  5. ^ Haggard, H. Rider [1926]. The Days of My Life Volume II (txt) (in English). Retrieved on 2006-12-17. 

[edit] External links

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Persondata
NAME Haggard, Henry Rider
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Haggard, Rider
SHORT DESCRIPTION English novelist, scholar
DATE OF BIRTH June 22, 1856
PLACE OF BIRTH Norfolk, England
DATE OF DEATH May 14, 1925
PLACE OF DEATH
ar:هنري رايدر هاجرد

bn:হেনরি রাইডার হ্যাগার্ড ca:Henry Rider Haggard de:Henry Rider Haggard et:Henry Rider Haggard el:Χένρυ Ράιντερ Χάγκαρντ es:H. Rider Haggard eo:Henry Rider Haggard eu:Henry Rider Haggard fr:Henry Rider Haggard gl:Henry Rider Haggard it:Henry Rider Haggard he:הנרי ריידר הגרד nl:Henry Rider Haggard ja:ヘンリー・ライダー・ハガード pt:Henry Rider Haggard ru:Хаггард, Генри Райдер sh:Henry Rider Haggard fi:H. Rider Haggard sv:Henry Rider Haggard

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