H. Rider Haggard
Overview
 
Sir Henry Rider Haggard, KBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

 (22 June 1856 – 14 May 1925) was an English writer of adventure novel
Adventure novel
The adventure novel is a genre of novels that has adventure, an exciting undertaking involving risk and physical danger, as its main theme.-History:...

s set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and a founder of the Lost World
Lost World (genre)
The Lost World literary genre is a fantasy or science fiction genre that involves the discovery of a new world out of time, place, or both. It began as a subgenre of the late-Victorian imperial romance and remains popular to this day....

 literary genre. He was also involved in agricultural reform around the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

. His stories, situated at the lighter end of Victorian literature
Victorian literature
Victorian literature is the literature produced during the reign of Queen Victoria . It forms a link and transition between the writers of the romantic period and the very different literature of the 20th century....

, continue to be popular and influential.
Henry Rider Haggard, generally known as H. Rider Haggard or Rider Haggard, was born at Bradenham, Norfolk
Bradenham, Norfolk
Bradenham is a village and civil parish, a conglomeration of East & West Bradenham, in the English county of Norfolk. It is situated some south-west of the town of East Dereham and west of the city of Norwich....

, the eighth of ten children, to Sir William Meybohm Rider Haggard, a barrister, and Ella Doveton, an author and poet.
Quotations

You lie; you always were a liar, and you always will be a liar.

Dawn (1884), CHAPTER I

Out of the dark we came, into the dark we go. Like a storm-driven bird at night we fly out of the Nowhere; for a moment our wings are seen in the light of the fire, and, lo! we are gone again into the Nowhere.

King Solomon's Mines (1885), CHAPTER V, OUR MARCH INTO THE DESERT

The great wheel of Fate rolls on like a Juggernaut, and crushes us all in turn, some soon, some late

Allan Quatermain (1887), INTRODUCTION

…there is no loneliness like the loneliness of crowds, especially to those who are unaccustomed to them.

A Tale of Three Lions (1887), CHAPTER I, THE INTEREST ON TEN SHILLINGS

There are things and there are faces which, when felt or seen for the first time, stamp themselves upon the mind like a sun image on a sensitized plate and there remain unalterably fixed.

Colonel Quaritch, V. C.: A Tale of Country Life (1888), CHAPTER I, HAROLD QUARITCH MEDITATES

For he was a merciful man, who loved not slaughter, although his fierce faith drove him from war to war.

The Brethren (1904), PROLOGUE

My death is very near to me, and of this I am glad, for I desire to pursue the quest in other realms, as it has been promised to me that I shall do.

Ayesha: The Return of She (1905), CHAPTER I, THE DOUBLE SIGN

We white people think that we know everything.

Child of Storm (1913), CHAPTER I, ALLAN QUATERMAIN HEARS OF MAMEENA

It is awkward to listen to oneself being praised, and I was always a shy man.

Allan and the Holy Flower (1915), CHAPTER I, BROTHER JOHN

I have never observed that the religious are more eager to die than the rest of us poor mortals.

The Ancient Allan (1920), CHAPTER I, OLD FRIEND

 
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