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She (Oxford World's Classics) [Paperback]

H. Rider Haggard , Daniel Karlin
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (83 customer reviews)

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Book Description

August 1, 2008 Oxford World's Classics
Drawing on his knowledge of Africa and of ancient legends, adventure writer H. Rider Haggard weaves this disturbing tale of Ayesha, the mysterious and immortal white queen of a Central African tribe. She, or "She-who-must-be-obeyed," is the embodiment of the mythological female figure who is both monstrous and desirable, and deadlier than the male. She is a pioneering work in the "Lost World" genre.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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Product Details

  • Paperback: 384 pages
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (August 1, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0199536422
  • ISBN-13: 978-0199536429
  • Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.6 x 7.7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (83 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #829,062 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Ayesha is She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, a 2,000-year-old queen who rules a fabled lost city deep in a maze of African caverns. She has the occult wisdom of Isis, the eternal youth and beauty of Aphrodite, and the violent appetite of a lamia. Like A. Conan Doyle's Lost World, She is one of those magnificent Victorian yarns about an expedition to a far-off locale shadowed by magic, mystery, and death.

Tim Stout writes, in Horror: 100 Best Books, "As the plot takes hold one has the fancy that [Ayesha] had always existed, in some dark dimension of the imagination, and that [H. Rider] Haggard was the fortunate author to whom she chose to reveal herself." Haggard did, in fact, write this book in a six-week burst of feverish inspiration: "It came faster than my poor aching hand could set it down," he later said.

This edition of the 1887 classic features an introductory essay by literary critic Regina Barreca, who likens Ayesha to Flaubert's Madame Bovary or Tolstoy's Anna Karenina--"literally fantastic female figures who must be stopped before they love again." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

The Broadview edition of She represents a benchmark in Rider Haggard studies. Situating She within a broad array of cultural documents on race, gender, empire, and archaeology, Andrew M. Stauffer has created an invaluable resource for contextualizing this fascinating adventure story within the ambulatory scope of the late-Victorian scientific and geographical imaginary. This edition will provide students, scholars, and the general reader alike with a sound foundation for reading (and rereading) Haggard s classic novel. (Shawn Malley )

"Professor Stauffer's editing is an exemplary case of textual stewardship: great care without imposition. His introduction is not only authoritative and lucid but stylistically engaging, as energetic as the novel itself an ideal introduction for first-time readers. The appendix topics are exactly what is needed, and the materials included provide an excellent context. The selection of non-fiction pieces by Haggard himself on questions of genre, imperialism, archaeology, and gender roles provides especially valuable insights into the author, the novel, and the times." (J. Jeffrey Franklin ) --J. Jeffrey Franklin --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 384 pages
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (August 1, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0199536422
  • ISBN-13: 978-0199536429
  • Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.6 x 7.7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (83 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #829,062 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

He's an amazing story teller. L  |  9 reviewers made a similar statement
H. Rider Haggard's She is one of the best adventure novels I have ever read. Southern Bard  |  10 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
36 of 38 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Good story, terrible Kindle formating August 19, 2010
By Mary
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
The story is about a young man, Leo, who supposedly can trace his ancestry to the Egyptian gods, and the older man who adopted him when Leo's own father died. Leo wants to find out his origins, so they leave England and travel to Africa, where they meet Ayesha, She, who supposedly is thousands of years old, and is of unequalled beauty. She thinks Leo is the incarnation of her ancient lover and so Ayesha holds both men under her spell, and tries to take them under the earth to a so called fountain of life, where she tries to persuade Leo to step into the fountain of life, and so become immortal. This story is good enough, but the Kindle formatting is terrible. In the early part of the book, there are several pages of nothing but questions marks, and then several pages where some of the words are again full of question marks. It is evident that no one edited this book, and that is really a shame. I would guess that Amazon is not going to take any extra pains to correct a book that is free, but that is really the shame. I feel that Amazon should not offer books, even if they are free, it they don't take the time to properly format them.
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20 of 21 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Was there an OCR problem? October 25, 2010
By Jimbo
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
It's a shame this excellent story was butchered by whomever was supposed to edit it and the proof-reader if there was one should be tarred and feathered. No one can read the Kindle version of "She" and think it could be one of the best and most popular novels ever written. Allan Quatermain would shoot the person with his eight bore rifle who offered this great book to Kindle readers in it's current, slaughtered form.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars Good story, frustrating read. December 28, 2010
Format:Kindle Edition
GREAT story, WORST formatting EVER. I could hardly get through the book with all the question marks. The story was great, one of Haggard's greats, but I just got so frustrated. Instead, download your free kindle book from here: […] The Gutenberg project formats everything precisely and cleanly and your read will be hassle free!
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20 of 23 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Dramatic scenes of adventure, but a bit hard to read August 28, 2001
Format:Paperback
H. Rider Haggard's style is the ornate, 19th century melodrama style. There is none of the stylish repartee of Conan Doyle or the sharp characterization of Dickens. Despite its literary flaws, H. Rider Haggard's vivid imagination make "She" an enduring classic.

"She", or "She-who-must-be-obeyed" , a.k.a Ayesha, is a mysterious and powerful queen in a subterranean land laced with horrible terrors in darkest Africa. To disregard her word is instant death for her savage subjects. Holly and his adopted nephew Leo explore through her realm and after nearly getting murdered in the most horrible way, meet up with She. Leo is dying from a fever, and Holly, an explorer and a man educated in languages and the classics, contends with Ayesha. The very ill Leo is meanwhile attended by Ustane, a local gal who marries herself to him in the local custom of girl-takes-boy and stands by him loyally. Who is this local girl? Is she really just a native lass as she seems? And what has She to do with Ustane? Rider's description of Ayesha is brilliant, Holly is a sympathetic character and the ending of the tale is spectacular. The only reason I give three stars is that the writing is murky, convuluted and overly ornate. Still, when Rider describes scenes of high drama, horror or beauty, he cannot be beat.

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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars "the eternal feminine" unfrocked September 25, 2001
Format:Paperback
When the young psychologist Sigmund Freud picked up this book, it presented him with the idea of the Anima or eternal feminine, which as a concept was picked and enlarged by his peers, metaphysicians and astrologers (e.g. Liz Greene's work on relationship astrology). That such a catchy idea came from what was effectively an off the shelf best seller with no literary pretentions indicates just what a fun and fascinating read it presents, especially for a young man who wishes a read encapsulating the perfect specimen of womankind.
This particular edition is good for it contains an excellent introduction by Professor D. Karlin with extensive and helpful notes. Karlin makes it clear that the book is a sort of fantasy within a fantasy and the joke is usually on us. It's contents are so "out there" that the author is at pains to state "every word is true" through his chosen first person mouthpiece, and he adds several details that makes the book's events plausible while you are in it.
The book is a masterpiece of archetypes including the Anima, acient civilization and archaeology, exploration, hunting and Africa as she used to be. It further represents the last mysterious possibilities that could be squeezed out of a world whose potential to amaze was fast disappearing due to the advent of transport and exploration. It is an old fashioned Indiana Jones type epic with explorers making a big discovery that could shake the British Empire to its very core.
The elements come from Haggard's own association and love of Africa (he includes the extinct Quagga one of the descriptions)
and his contact with an angelic woman with whom his fascination was was not satiated as he was married already.
... Read more ›
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18 of 21 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Old time fantasy story May 30, 2000
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
This fantasy adventure story takes place in England and later transports the reader to the bowels of Central Africa. The story starts when Horace Holly makes a deal with his dying friend. His friend, knowing the end is near, has a young son, Leo, who he leaves an iron trunk to. Horace is instructed not to open the chest until the boy's 25th birthday. In addition, Horace must take care of Leo and raise him.

On Leo's 25th birthday, Horace and Leo open the chest and in it they discover that Leo is part of a historic lineage which goes back to the ancient Egyptians. They also discover that everlasting life can be found off the coast of Africa by bathing in a magical fire. They soon venture to the hidden area to discover an ancient race of cannibalistic people who are lead by Ayesha, otherwise known as She. She is a very beautiful temptress and has the secret to everlasting life. Also, she was in love with Leo's family centuries ago. When Leo arrives, She is much smitten with him.

This book was well written and the adventure well thought out. The level of detail that Haggard uses to describe the Amahagger's (the tribe Leo and Holly discover) were extraordinary. She is easily understood to be a sophisticated woman who has strong powers of life and death over her subjects. However, I found the book a little hard to read. The lengthy paragraphs that detailed the Amahagger society were not needed and slowed the pace of the book. Still not a bad adventure book but the pace kept being diverted by lengthy descriptions.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars A True Classic
A classic tale, made into inferior movies at least twice. The book is better; Haggard is a master storyteller, better than Burroughs. And her name is pronounced "Ah-shah."
Published 4 days ago by Barry Zimmerman
4.0 out of 5 stars She
Wonderful adventure book, about half way through! I like the characters, the plot is unpredictable.I am thinking of getting HRH's collection on kindle, I read People of the mist... Read more
Published 18 days ago by topfeeder
5.0 out of 5 stars a classic
I read this book decades ago as a youngster. I wanted to reread it and now it is on kindle. excellent.
Published 1 month ago by Ron Penn
5.0 out of 5 stars She
I bought this version for one of my students, I hope she likes it as much as I did and still do. A must read. Book is brand new and a perfect gift.
Published 1 month ago by Cheryl L. Powell
5.0 out of 5 stars A Must-Read!
We discovered this book after reading another of Haggard's books, Brethren, which is excellent as well. Discovering She has been like finding a long buried treasure chest. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Allison JB Earle
4.0 out of 5 stars 'She'--reread after many years.
I first read 'She' many years ago. I liked it then, and I still like it/although Rider Haggard's language reflects the beliefs and culture of his time, especially when writing... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Sam
3.0 out of 5 stars OK, but I expected more
With the high praise I expected a better read. But it was just okay. The story itself was different, but so are a great many stories these days from people like Stephen King,... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Roadkill
2.0 out of 5 stars Very Disappointing
This was a difficult book to reprint with all of the caricatures - the main text was okay but there was none of the great illustrations from the original - very disappointing.
Published 2 months ago by Gerald Pavano
3.0 out of 5 stars Formatting fine. Book, meh.
Given the tenor of the current "most helpful reviews", I feel I should point out that whatever formatting issues the book had have been fixed. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Guardian of the Scales
3.0 out of 5 stars a little predictable
Still entertaining and good enough to be ripped of by a more modern author. I number of years ago I read a contempory novel that took alot from this book and then expanded on it.
Published 3 months ago by Boester
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