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.  
           
  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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