She

Summary

She was written in the flush of success following the publication of King Solomon's Mines (1886) and was published in its wake in 1887. Again Haggard drew on his substantial knowledge of Africa and ancient legends but now he worked with darker material. She is narrated by a man seemingly without family called Ludwig Horace Holly. A beautiful and powerful white queen of an African tribe ("She who must be obeyed") is the centre of attention here as she falls in love with the English explorer. Even her name, Ayesha, indicates magic and mystery. She is more sophisticated but also much more disturbing that King Solomon's Mines , even in its raising up of the concept of "Truth" in a nightmarish world where we see pits filled with skeletons and the like. She spawned a number of much lesser sequels, including Ayesha: The Return of She (1905) and the risible She and Allan (1921). She 's admirers included Jung who used it as an example of his "anima" concept.

Table of contents

• King Solomon's Mines
• Introduction
• My Visitor
• The Years Roll By
• The Sherd of Amenartas
• The Squall
• The Head of the Ethiopian
• An Early Christian Ceremony
• Ustane Sings
• The Feast, and After!
• A Little Foot
• Speculations
• The Plain of Kôr
• `She'
• Ayesha Unveils
• A Soul in Hell
• Ayesha Gives Judgment
• The Tombs of Kôr
• The Balance Turns
• Go, Woman!
• `Give me a Black Goat!'
• Triumph
• The Dead and Living Meet
• Job Has a Presentiment
• The Temple of Truth
• Walking the Plank
• The Spirit of Life
• What we Saw
• We Leap
• Over the Mountain

More by H. Rider Haggard

• King Solomon's Mines

Other Fiction classics

• Lady Chatterley's Lover — D.H. Lawrence
• Crime and Punishment — Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Billy Budd — Herman Melville
• Ulysses — James Joyce
• Dubliners — James Joyce
• Little Women — Louisa M. Alcott