The First Novel in Africa

My grandfather was an adventurer and he loved the open plains of Africa. As a transporter he carried goods from harbors to inland towns by oxwagon. Never on the  wagon, he walked the fifty kilometers his trek traveled every day. At night he would light a campfire and sleep under the stars. He was an avid reader; by candlelight during many solitary evenings in the veld. He gave me his favorite books when I was very young, just before he passed away at age ninety-one. 

Years later I picked up one he left me - King Solomon’s Mines. I was entranced. I had discovered Henry Rider Haggard. 

Here was everything my young heart was looking for – adventure, mystery and travel. Stories interspersed with gems to the young mind such as: “Thinking can only serve to measure out the helplessness of thought” and “There is no journey upon this earth that a man may not make if he sets his heart to it. There is nothing that he cannot do, there are no mountains he may not climb, there are no deserts he cannot cross; save a mountain and a desert of which you are spared the knowledge, if love leads him and he holds his life in his hand counting it as nothing, ready to keep it or to lose it as Providence may order”.

Henry Rider Haggard was born in England in 1856, the son of a local squire and an heiress. His father judged him unworthy of the expense of a public school and found a post for him in South Africa at the age of nineteen. The young Henry held various positions in the then British government of the country, enabling his extensive travels. From these wanderings in South Africa he would go on to write more than fifty novels and a dozen books of nonfictional works on sociology, agriculture, and religion. 

He was prodigious writing his novels on a schedule of one every three months. He refused to revise drafts believing it saps his creative energy. After the release of Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, one of Haggard’s brothers dared him to write something as good. In six weeks Haggard produced King Solomon’s Mines. 

During his lifetime he sold more than two million books and his novel She is considered to be one of the classics of imaginative literature. It sold more than 83 million copies making it one of the bestselling books of all time. Haggard was popular internationally and was President Theodore Roosevelt's favorite fiction author. 

Everyone remembers their first romantic novel. For me it was She. 

Although written in another century what young heart would not be captured by “In our moments of reason we well knew the deadly nature of our pursuit, but we certainly were not prepared to abandon its terrible delights” or “Now it appeared that there was a mysterious Queen clothed by rumor with dread and wonderful attributes, and commonly known by the impersonal but, to my mind, rather awesome title of She”?

My grandfather showed me through the life he lived and what he read the rough beauty of this country I live in.

I thank him dearly for introducing me to my first novel set in Africa.