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Allan Quartermain first appeared in 1885 in H.
Rider Haggard's book King
Solomon's Mines, which his publisher referred to at the time
as "the most amazing book ever written", and then again
in the sequel Allan
Quartermain, and subsequently in a number of short stories.
In the character of Allan Quartermain, Haggard has created the quintessential
Victorian adventurer and big-game hunter. Set in the unexplored
heart of Africa during the height of the Victorian British Empire,
it is written with that charming hubris characteristic of the time.
While many passages might now be construed as racist, they are remarkably
enlightened for their time. H. Rider Haggard's depictions of the
native Africans is far more sympathetic than much of the literature
written at the end of the nineteenth century, which usually portrayed
them as mindless savages. Perhaps this sympathetic treatment is
a result of the years Haggard lived in South Africa, where he not
only took time to familiarize himself with the native culture, he
even learned to speak Zulu. |
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Portrayed in LXG as a broken man addicted to opium,
Quartermain is hardly the hero of H. Rider Haggards adventure novels.
However, given the prevalence of opium use in Victorian London,
and the fairly high occurrence of addiction to laudanum as a pain
killer, this isn't an entirely unlikely outcome for a big-game hunter
and adventurer in his declining years. |
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