Customer Reviews

Hunter Quatermain's Story: The Uncollected Adventures of Allan Quartermain

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3 star:		(2)
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This is not a review of HUNTER QUARTERMAIN'S STORY, so please don't take the three stars too seriously. It should be said, though, that what is presented in this book as "Zikali the Wizard," a short story and, evidently, a rarity, is just a passage from the novel CHILD OF STORM. Haining is to be censured for not making this clear. He even lists "Zikali" as one of not quite twenty items in the Quatermain Saga, between CHILD OF STORM and "A Tale of Three Lions." This would be like taking the chapter "Riddles in the Dark" from Tolkien's THE HOBBIT and implying it is a rare short story about Bilbo.

This is again a group of friends being entertained by Henry Curtis, and he has invited the old hunter himself over to regale the group with a tale over the odd drink or two.

Allan does come along and fills them in on another story with not the happiest ending, with elephants, a black maned lion, and a buffalo.

The Raven was pleased to see this book come out. Short stories about Allan Quatermain are finally released! Rider Haggard wrote something besides novels about his hero! Bravo to Mr. Peter Haining for taking time to select and edit the four stories and the novella Allan's Wife.

The stories are exciting for their tales of adventure and danger in The Dark Continent. They are takes of danger, hardship, and love and lost. Quartermain is a tragic hero, eventually becoming wealthy, but always at a great loss-- his son, his wife, and eventually his own life in the Africa that he loved with all of his heart. Shadows of this lie in all of the stories, and Mr. Haining has thoughtfully added a chronological list of the Quatermain stories.

Also, Rider Haggard made something of an enigma himself. He writes of the African people as most British writers of his day, in a somewhat prejudiced manner, even using the ugly "n" word. (To the British of that period, ALL colored races were inferior and generally refered to thus, such as Natives of India, China, and North and South America.)Yet Haggard praises the nobility of the black races, and one short story Magepa the Buck, tells of a black man who gives his life that his grandson might live. In the front of the story, Quatermain states that such a man makes him proud of the human race. Hardly the words of a truly prejudiced man.

The Raven has always felt that Rider Haggard was a writer truly ahead of his time in accepting that all men were worthy, none inferior. Kudus to Rider Hagard and to Peter Haining for this most excellent book! Quoth the Raven...