Allan Quatermain: Classic Tales Edition
Written by H. Rider Haggard
Narrated by B.J. Harrison
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
Haggard wrote Allan Quatermain immediately after King Solomon’s Mines, though it takes place at the chronological tail end of Quatermain’s adventures. He has just lost his only son, and is now wearied with the traditional English lifestyle. He longs for the wilds of Africa. He convinces his friends Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good as well as the Zulu chief Umbopa to return to Africa in search of a fabled race of white people.
Fierce Masai warriors, subterranean rivers, creatures from the deep, and a spectacular civil war are all in store for our seasoned adventurers. It’s an adventure you won’t want to miss!
H. Rider Haggard
H. Rider Haggard (1856–1925) was an English adventure novelist. Haggard studied law, but rather than pursuing a legal career took a secretarial position in what is now South Africa. His time there provided the inspiration for some of his most popular novels, including She (1887), an early classic of the lost world fantasy genre and one of the bestselling books of all time.
Related to Allan Quatermain
Titles in the series (2)
The Ultimate Allan Quatermain Collection: 8 Novels, 4 Short Stories & 1 Extracanonical Work Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Allan Quatermain: Classic Tales Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Reviews for Allan Quatermain
153 ratings7 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Another recommend required reading for men. I agree
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The second Allen Quartermain book, and in some ways even greater than King Solomon's Mines, providing closure for most of the main characters, including Allen himself, who dies at the end of it. All the other stories thereafter are retrospective.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I've read and re-read this book and I love it everytime. There is something about that stiff upper lip, reserved, oh so British attitude that shouldn't work in an adventure story, but works magnificently here.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A pleasant diversion. I could have done without some of the "Great White Hunter" crap, but otherwise a nice little adventure - sometimes predictable, but still entertaining. The characters were colorful and often had more depth than I expected.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The sequel to the much more famous King Solomon's Mines. Very much in the same vein.Alan Quatermain - the 'hero' from KSM, is bored. He's been back in civilised and genteel england for a few years. Unfortunetly his son much loved son dies in the intervening period - from smallpox - And he concieves a yearning to return to the wilderness of Africa and the udulation of the natives. Fortunetly his old friends the irrepresible Cook and Curtis also feel similarly inclined. Quartermain remembers an old tale told to him of a tribe of "white" natives who live far out in central africa, and this seems like a suitable target for them to aim for. Hence various adventures occur and a chance meeting with an old friend the Zulu Umslopogaas provides the necessary background to help ensure that the White men and the natives are suitably contrasted - very much a product of the era it was written in. There are the usual diversions with pretty women, scheming priests and just about everything you would expect from an adventure story, including of course graphically bloody massacres, and heoric deeds. Many of the trials they undergo seem to be quite realistic - porters deserting a group was a common hazard for example. The river through the mountain wasn't actually too unbelivable, although the gas jet was just bizarre.In today's world it is of course horrendously stereotypical and often racist, but at the time it was written, it must have been close to how Africa was percieved, a mysterious continent far away, full of savages and strange possabilities. Only Alan Quatermain himself gets drawn into the story, even his closest aquaintances remain very much 2D shadows to accompany him, but we do get quit a bit of insight into Alan's view of events and the people around him, which is often dryly amusing. The pacing is excellant, and the story rushes along from one place to the next with suitable pauses for the characters and the reader to refresh themselves. There is some trully obvious foreshadowing, but the account is supposed to have been diary entries from AQ written after his travels, so in some respects this is excuseable. Overal, enjoyable, not as thrilling as KSMs, but another quick fun read highlighting the social differences between the 1880s and today...............................................
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Like Turtledove, Haggard is not a stylist, but this is a good sequel to "King Solomon's Mines". If you like books set just off the edge of the map, then this is a ripping yarn.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I always imagine that the novels of Sir Rider Haggard are a kind of literary precursor of the Indiana Jones films. In fact, with Robert Louis Stevenson, Haggard was part of the literary reaction against domestic realism that has been called a romance revival. While Stevenson listened to the throbbing drums in the South Seas, Haggard painted a romantic picture of valiant Victorian heroes and innocent, blonde maidens threatened by hordes of un-Christian and blood-thirsty Africans.King Solomon’s Mines (1885), She (1887) and Allan Quatermain (1887) are African adventure stories. It is a bit strange that while King Solomon’s Mines is clearly situated in South Africa, with frequent references to Zulus, the Transvaal and Boers, Allan Quatermain is supposedly set in Kenya, but the description is still mostly like South Africa, and the introduction of the Masai is clearly through literary sources. In fact, at the end of the novel Haggard includes a page of "Authorities" to fend of criticism for plagiarism.Unlike King Solomon’s Mines and She, which presented a fairly unified story, Allan Quatermain consists of two story elements which are only loosely connected as they happen along their journey. As in later Victorian stories, such as Conan Doyle's The lost world the lost civilization is discovered after travelling through a screening setting.The reason we still read the novels of Sir Rider Haggard is that they were not as offensive about white supremacy and denigrating about the native Africans as some of his contemporaries. One may wonder how long we can bear them in the literary canon before they are scrubbed as products of the colonial mind and white supremacy. However, in the meantime they are highly entertaining, romantics adventure stories.