Allan Quatermain is the protagonist of H. Rider Haggard's 1885 novel King Solomon's Mines, its one sequel Allan Quatermain (1887), twelve prequel novels and four prequel short stories, totalling eighteen works.Miller, Thos. Kent. "Fate as a Character: H. Rider Haggard's Secret Currents". In Wormwood (magazine): Literature of the Fantastic, Supernatural and Decadent. New Yorkshire UK, Tartarus Press, 2013 ISSN 1744-2834. An English professional big game hunter and adventurer, in film and television he has been portrayed by Richard Chamberlain, Sean Connery, Cedric Hardwicke, Patrick Swayze and Stewart Granger among others.
History
The character Quatermain is an English-born professional big game hunter and occasional trader living in South Africa. An outdoorsman who finds English cities and climate unbearable, he prefers to spend most of his life in Africa, where he grew up under the care of his widower father, a Christian missionary.
In the earliest novels, native Africans refer to Quatermain as Macumazahn, meaning "Watcher-by-Night," a reference to his nocturnal habits and keen instincts. In later novels, Macumazahn is said to be a short form of Macumazana, meaning "One who stands out." Quatermain is frequently accompanied by his native servant, the Hottentot Hans, a wise and caring family retainer from his youth. His sarcastic comments offer a sharp critique of European conventions. Though Hans is identified as a “Hottentot” throughout his appearances in six Quatermain novels,Marie (1912), The Holy Flower (1915), The Ivory Child (1916), She and Allan (1921), Heu-Heu: or, The Monster (1924), and The Treasure of the Lake (1926)—internal chronology being 1835 through 1874 "Hottentot" is now considered an offensive and outdated term; "Khoisan" is the preferred term. In his final adventures, Quatermain is joined by two British companions, Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good of the Royal Navy, and by his Zulu friend Umslopogaas.
Appearance and character The series spans 50 years of Quatermain's life, from 18 to 68; at the start of the foundation novel King Solomon's Mines he has just turned 55,King Solomon's Mines, Chapter One, First Sentence: “It is a curious thing that at my age—fifty-five last birthday—I should find myself taking up a pen to try to write a history.” Excerpt From: H. Rider Haggard. “King Solomon's Mines.” Apple Books. giving him a birthdate of 1830. Physically, he is small, wiry, and unattractive, with a beard and short hair that sticks up. His one skill is his marksmanship, where he has no equal. Quatermain is aware that as a professional hunter, he has helped to destroy his beloved wild free places of Africa. In old age he hunts without pleasure, having no other means of making a living, aside from trading.
About Quatermain's family, little is written. He lives at Durban, in Natal, South Africa. He marries twice, but is quickly widowed both times. He entrusts the printing of memoirs in the series to his son Harry, whose death he mourns in the opening of the novel Allan Quatermain. Harry Quatermain is a medical student who dies of smallpox while working in a hospital. Haggard did not write the Quatermain novels in chronological order, and made errors with some details. Quatermain's birth, age at the time of his marriages, and age at the time of his death cannot be reconciled to the apparent date of Harry's birth and age at death.
Series
Composition Haggard wrote fourteen novels and four short stories featuring Quatermain, beginning with King Solomon's Mines (1885). From 1885 to 1889 he wrote four of the novels and three of the short stories, including King Solomon's Mines and its sequel Allan Quatermain (1887). Haggard wrote this sequel in the summer of 1885, immediately after producing King Solomon's Mines,<ref name="haggard"> . Retrieved 21 December 2013</ref> but Allan Quatermain was only published two years later in 1887. The other Quatermain stories from this period are "Hunter Quatermain's Story" (1885), "Long Odds" (1886), "A Tale of Three Lions" (1887), Maiwa's Revenge (1888), and Allan's Wife and Other Tales (1889). The latter book collected the previous short stories as well as a new novelette. After the publication of Allan's Wife, Haggard abandoned the Quatermain series for two decades.Miller, Thos. Kent. "Fate as a Character: H. Rider Haggard's Secret Currents". In Wormwood (magazine): Literature of the Fantastic, Supernatural and Decadent. New Yorkshire UK, Tartarus Press, 2013 ISSN 1744-2834. Then, from around April to August 1909, Haggard wrote Child of Storm, originally intending it to be a stand-alone Quatermain novel.Miller, Thomas Kent. "Thoughts on Zikali: From Whence Came the Wizard?". In The Haggard Journal, No 142 - November 2023 (society journal). Wilpshire, Blackburn UK, Rider Haggard Society, 2023 ISSN 2516-5127. However, during or after its composition, Haggard decided to make Child of Storm the second part of a trilogy of new Quatermain books, beginning with Marie, published in 1912. Marie was the first new Quatermain story for twenty-three years. It was followed by a short story, "Magepa the Buck" (1912), and then by Child of Storm (1913), published four years after its composition in mid-1909. Haggard continued to write more Quatermain stories until his death in 1925; the final two books in the series, The Treasure of the Lake (1926) and Allan and the Ice-Gods (1927), were published posthumously.
Subdivisions
Although some of Haggard's Quatermain novels stand alone, there are a few important sub-series. In the Zulu trilogy, Marie (1912), Child of Storm (1913), and Finished (1917), Quatermain becomes ensnared in the vengeance of Zikali, the dwarf wizard known as "the-thing-that-should-never-have-been-born" and "Opener-of-Roads." Zikali plots and finally achieves the overthrow of the Zulu royal House of Senzangakona, founded by Chaka and ending under Cetewayo (Cetshwayo kaMpande) (Haggard's spelling of Zulu names is used in the first instance, with the currently used versions in brackets).
These novels are prequels to the foundation pair, King Solomon's Mines (1885) and Allan Quatermain (1887), which describe Quatermain's discovery of vast wealth, his discontent with a life of ease, and his return to Africa following the death of his son Harry.
The Holy Flower (1915) paved the way for a trilogy of Quatermain books involving the Taduki drug, which induces clairvoyance and visions: The Ivory Child (1916), The Ancient Allan (1920), and Allan and the Ice-Gods (1927). The latter two books involve Quatermain experiencing his past lives through the use of Taduki.
With She and Allan (1921), Haggard engineered a crossover between his two most popular series, uniting Quatermain with Ayesha, the central character of his hugely successful She novels, and bringing in several other key characters from each series—Hans, Umslopogaas, and Zikali from the Quatermain series, and Billali, Ayesha's faithful minister. This book formed the third part of the "She" trilogy, although in chronological terms, it necessarily served as a prequel to the first two "She" books, since Allan Quatermain's meeting with Ayesha in She and Allan is implied to be before the discovery of Kôr by Ludwig Horace Holly and Leo Vincey as narrated in She, the first Ayesha book.
Summaries of the stories
King Solomon's Mines (1885)
A sixty-year-old Allan Quatermain travels with two fellow Englishmen (Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good) through a remote region of southern Africa with the aim of locating Curtis' missing brother and the lost diamond mines of King Solomon. They cross plains, deserts and mountain ranges on their quest. Quatermain, Curtis and Good reach the lost kingdom of Kukuanaland, inhabited by a warlike race related to the Zulus, and find themselves involved in a bloody struggle for the Kukuana throne.
"Hunter Quatermain's Story" (1885)
At a dinner-party in Yorkshire, Quatermain recounts a memorable encounter with a buffalo he once had on a South African hunting expedition. The short story features Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good as minor characters. It also includes a character called the Hottentot Hans, but this is not the same Hottentot Hans who appeared in Marie (1912) and its sequels.
"Long Odds" (1886)
Quatermain describes how a lion mauled his leg on a hunting expedition. This event is referenced in King Solomon's Mines and other stories several times.
Allan Quatermain: An Account of His Further Adventures and Discoveries in Company with Sir Henry Curtis, Bart., Commander John Good, R.N., and One Umslopogaas (1887)
Three years after the events of King Solomon's Mines, Quatermain, Curtis and Good return to Africa to locate a "great white race" hidden in the heart of the Dark Continent. They travel with Umslopogaas, the mighty Zulu warrior, and find the lost world of Zu-Vendis, inhabited by a race of sun-worshippers possibly descended from ancient Persians or Phoenicians. Chronologically this is the last of the Quatermain stories, although it was published early on; Haggard did not write the stories in chronological order.
"A Tale of Three Lions" (1887)
In the third of the four Allan Quatermain short stories, Quatermain and his son Harry prospect for gold and seek revenge for their faithful servant Jim-Jim after he is killed by a lion.
Maiwa's Revenge; or, The War of the Little Hand (1888)
Quatermain aids the African queen Maiwa in a war of vengeance after her infant son is murdered.
Allan's Wife (1889)
This novella tells the story of Allan Quatermain's youth in Africa, and of his marriage to Stella Carson. The story involves Quatermain's father, as well as the Zulu character Indaba-zimbi and the evil baboon-woman Hendrika. Hendrika is conjectured to have influenced Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli and Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan. While this is speculation, Kipling acknowledged that Haggard's Nada the Lily (1892) was vital in his creation of Mowgli.
Marie: An Episode in the Life of the Late Allan Quatermain (1912)
After a twenty-three-year hiatus during which no new Quatermain stories were published, the hunter returned in Marie, which describes his love for Marie Marais, a Boer woman, as well as his involvement in events in Zulu history. Marie was the first book in the Zulu Trilogy and introduced the Hottentot Hans, who was Quatermain's companion in five further books: The Holy Flower (1915), The Ivory Child (1916), She and Allan (1921), Heu-Heu; or, The Monster (1924), and The Treasure of the Lake (1926).
"Magepa the Buck" (1912)
In the final short story, Quatermain recounts the bravery of the titular Zulu character, who undertook an admirable feat of endurance to save the life of a child. "Magepa the Buck" was collected in the 1921 Haggard book Smith and the Pharaohs.
Child of Storm (1913)
In this book, the sequel to Marie and second volume in the Zulu Trilogy, Allan Quatermain becomes involved in the political rivalries between the Zulu princes. The book introduced Zikali, the Zulu dwarf-wizard first mentioned in Marie.
The Holy Flower (1915)
Quatermain and Hans travel with the Zulu Mavovo and the young British collector Stephen Somers in quest of a giant orchid worshipped by a lost race called the Pongo. The book involves battles with Arab slave-traders, cannibalism, occultism, and a huge gorilla-god.
The Ivory Child (1916)