King Solomon's Mines
King
Solomon's Mines (1885) is a popular
novel[1] by the English Victorian
adventure writer and fabulist
Sir H. Rider Haggard.
It tells of a search of an unexplored region of Africa by a group of
adventurers led by Allan
Quatermain for the missing brother of one of
the party. It is the first English adventure
novel set in Africa, and is considered to
be the genesis of the lost world
literary genre.
Background
The
book was first published in September 1885 amid considerable fanfare, with
billboards and posters around London announcing "The Most Amazing Book
Ever Written". It became an immediate best seller. By the late 19th
century, explorers were uncovering ancient civilisations around the world, such as Egypt's Valley of the Kings,
and the empire of Assyria.
Inner Africa remained largely unexplored and King Solomon's Mines, the first novel of African
adventure published in English, captured the public's imagination.
The
"King
Solomon" of the book's title is the
Biblical king renowned both for his wisdom and for his wealth. A number of
sites have been suggested as the location of his mines, including the workings
at the Timna valley
near Eilat. Research published in September 2013 has shown that this
site was in use during the 10th century BCE as a copper mine possibly by the Edomites,[2][3] who the Bible reports were rivals of and frequently at war
with King Solomon.[4][5][6] The Bible does refer to King Solomon having sent out, in
partnership with his Phoenician allies, trading expeditions along the Red Sea,
which brought exotic wares and animals from Africa to Jerusalem. But there is
no evidence of Solomon having maintained mines for precious metals and diamonds
in the depths of Africa, such as provide the book's title and the center of its
plot.
Haggard
knew Africa well, having travelled deep within the continent as a 19-year-old
during the Anglo-Zulu War
and the First Boer War,
where he had been impressed by South Africa's vast mineral wealth and by the
ruins of ancient lost cities being uncovered, such as Great
Zimbabwe. His original Allan Quatermain
character was based in large part on Frederick Courtney Selous, the British white
hunter and explorer of Colonial
Africa.[7][8] Selous's real-life experiences provided Haggard with the
background and inspiration for this and many later stories.
Haggard
also owed a considerable debt to Joseph Thomson, the Scottish explorer whose book Through Masai Land
was published in 1885.[9] Thomson claimed he had terrified warriors in Kenya by
taking out his false teeth and claiming to be a magician, just as Captain Good
does in King Solomon's Mines. Contemporary James
Runciman wrote an article entitled King
Plagiarism and His Court,[10] interpreted as accusing Haggard of plagiarism for this.[11][12] Thomson was so outraged at Haggard's alleged plagiarism
that he published a novel of his own, Ulu: an African Romance, which,
however, failed to sell.
Plot summary
Allan
Quatermain, an adventurer and white
hunter based in Durban, in what is now South Africa, is approached by aristocrat Sir
Henry Curtis and his friend Captain Good,
seeking his help finding Sir Henry's brother, who was last seen travelling
north into the unexplored interior on a quest for the fabled King Solomon's
Mines. Quatermain has a mysterious map purporting to lead to the mines, but had
never taken it seriously. However, he agrees to lead an expedition in return
for a share of the treasure, or a stipend for his son if he is killed along the
way. He has little hope they will return alive, but reasons that he has already
outlived most people in his profession, so dying in this manner at least
ensures that his son will be provided for. They also take along a mysterious
native, Umbopa, who seems more regal, handsome and well-spoken than most
porters of his class, but who is very anxious to join the party.
Travelling
by oxcart, they reach the edge of a desert, but not before a hunt in which a
wounded elephant claims the life of a servant. They continue on foot across the
desert, almost dying of thirst before finding the oasis shown halfway across on
the map. Reaching a mountain range called Suliman Berg, they climb a peak (one
of "Sheba's
Breasts") and enter a cave where they find the frozen corpse of José
Silvestre (also spelt Silvestra), the 16th-century Portuguese explorer who drew
the map in his own blood. That night, a second servant dies from the cold, so
they leave his body next to Silvestra's, to "give him a companion".
They cross the mountains into a raised valley, lush and green, known as
Kukuanaland. The inhabitants have a well-organised army and society and speak
an ancient dialect of IsiZulu.
Kukuanaland's capital is Loo, the destination of a magnificent road from
ancient times. The city is dominated by a central royal kraal.
They
soon meet a party of Kukuana warriors who are about to kill them when Captain
Good nervously fidgets with his false teeth, making the Kukuanas recoil in
fear. Thereafter, to protect themselves, they style themselves "white men
from the stars"—sorcerer-gods—and are required to give regular proof of
their divinity, considerably straining both their nerves and their ingenuity.
They
are brought before King Twala, who rules over his people with ruthless
violence. He came to power years before when he murdered his brother, the
previous king, and drove his brother's wife and infant son, Ignosi, out into
the desert to die. Twala's rule is unchallenged. An evil, impossibly ancient hag
named Gagool is his chief advisor. She roots out any potential opposition by
ordering regular witch hunts
and murdering without trial all those identified as traitors. When she singles
out Umbopa for this fate, it takes all Quatermain's skill to save his life.
Gagool,
it appears, has already sensed what Umbopa soon after reveals: he is Ignosi,
the rightful king of the Kukuanas. A rebellion breaks out, the Englishmen
gaining support for Ignosi by taking advantage of their foreknowledge of a lunar
eclipse to claim that they will black out
the moon as proof of Ignosi's claim. (In early editions, this was a solar
eclipse; Haggard changed it after realising that his description of a solar
eclipse was not realistic[13]) The Englishmen join Ignosi's army in a furious battle. Although
outnumbered, the rebels overthrow Twala, and Sir Henry lops off his head in a
duel.
The
Englishmen also capture Gagool, who reluctantly leads them to King Solomon's
Mines. She shows them a treasure room inside a mountain, carved deep within the
living rock
and full of gold, diamonds, and ivory. She then treacherously sneaks out while
they are admiring the hoard and triggers a secret mechanism that closes the mine's
vast stone door. However, a brief scuffle with a beautiful Kukuana woman named
Foulata—who had become attached to Good after nursing him through his injuries
sustained in the battle—causes her to be crushed under the stone door, though
not before fatally stabbing Foulata. Their scant store of food and water
rapidly dwindling, the trapped men prepare to die also. After a few despairing
days sealed in the dark chamber, they find an escape route, bringing with them
a few pocketfuls of diamonds from the immense trove, enough to make them rich.
The
Englishmen bid farewell to a sorrowful Ignosi and return to the desert,
assuring him that they value his friendship but must return to be with their
own people, Ignosi in return promising them that they will be venerated and
honoured among his people forever. Taking a different route, they find Sir
Henry's brother stranded in an oasis by a broken leg, unable to go forward or
back. They return to Durban and eventually to England, wealthy enough to live
comfortable lives.
Literary significance and criticism
Haggard
wrote the novel as a result of a five-shilling
wager with his brother, who said that he could not write a novel half as good
as Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure
Island (1883).[14][15] He wrote it in a short time, somewhere between six[14] and sixteen[13] weeks between January and 21 April 1885. However, the book
was a complete novelty and was rejected by one publisher after another. After
six months, King Solomon's Mines was published, and the book became the
year's best seller, with printers struggling to print copies fast enough.[15]
In
the process, King Solomon's Mines created a new genre known as the
"Lost World",
which would inspire Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Land That Time
Forgot, Arthur Conan Doyle's
The Lost World, Rudyard
Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King[16] and H.
P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of
Madness. In The Return of Tarzan (1913), Edgar Rice Burroughs introduced his own lost city
of Opar, in which the influence of King Solomon's Mines is
evident (Burroughs' Opar is supposedly the same the Biblical Ophir with which King Solomon traded). Opar reappeared in further
Tarzan novels and was later taken up in the Khokarsa novels of Philip José Farmer
and various derivative works in other media. Burroughs also introduced other
lost cities in various hidden corners of Africa, for Tarzan to visit, such as a valley inhabited by stray Crusaders still maintaining a Medieval way of life. Robert
E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian
also visited several lost cities, and Lee
Falk's The
Phantom was initially written in this
genre. A much later Lost World novel is Michael
Crichton's Congo, which is set in the 1970s and features characters seeking
a trove of diamonds in the lost city of Zinj for use in electronic components rather than jewellery.
As
in Treasure Island, the narrator of King Solomon's Mines tells
his tale in the first person in an easy conversational style. Almost entirely
missing (except in the speech of the Kukuanas) is the ornate language usually
associated with novels of this era. Haggard's use of the first person
subjective perspective also contrasts with the omniscient third-person
viewpoint then in vogue among influential writers such as Anthony
Trollope, Thomas
Hardy, and George
Eliot.
The
book has scholarly value for the colonialist attitudes that Haggard expresses,[17] and for the way that he portrays the relationships between
the white and African characters. Haggard portrays some African characters as
barbarians, such as Twala and Gagool, but their barbarity has more to do with
their roles as antagonists in the story than with their African heritage. He
also presents the other side of the coin, showing some black Africans as heroes
and heroines (such as Ignosi), and showing respect for their culture. The book
expresses much less prejudice than some of the later books in this genre.[citation needed] Indeed,
Quatermain states that he refuses to use the word "nigger" and that
many Africans are more worthy of the title of "gentleman" than the
Europeans who settle or adventure in the country.[18] Haggard even includes an interracial romance between a
Kukuana woman, Foulata, and the white Englishman Captain Good. The narrator
tries to discourage the relationship, dreading the uproar that such a marriage
would cause back home in England; however, he has no objection to the lady,
whom he considers very beautiful and noble. Haggard eventually kills off
Foulata, who dies in Good's arms.
Kukuanaland
is said in the book to be forty leagues north of the Lukanga
river in modern Zambia, which would place
it in the extreme southeast of the present Democratic Republic of Congo. The culture of the Kukuanas shares many attributes with
other South African tribes, such as Zulu being spoken and the kraal system being used.
Adaptations in other media
Films
The
novel has been adapted to film at least six times. The first version premiered in 1937, King Solomon's Mines, and was directed by Robert Stevenson. The best known version premiered in 1950, King Solomon's Mines, directed by Compton
Bennett and Andrew
Marton, which was followed by a sequel, Watusi (1959). In 1979 a low-budget version was directed by Alvin
Rakoff, King Solomon's Treasure, combining both King Solomon's Mines as well as Allan
Quatermain in one story. The 1985 film, King Solomon's Mines, was a more tongue-in-cheek parody of the story, followed
by a sequel in the same vein: Allan Quatermain and
the Lost City of Gold (1987).
Around the same period an Australian animated TV film came out, King
Solomon's Mines. In December 2006, the movie, “The Librarian:
Return to King Solomon’s Mines”
was released as the second in a trilogy that follows one man’s fantastical
adventures. In 2008 a direct-to-video adaptation, Allan Quatermain and
the Temple of Skulls was
released by Mark Atkins, which bore more resemblance to Indiana
Jones than the novel.
Comics
- In 1951, Avon Periodicals published a comic book adaptation.[19]
- In 1952, a comic adaptation was published in Classics Illustrated #97, scripted by Kenneth W. Fitch and with drawings by H. C. Kiefer.[20]
- In 1954, British comics artist Dudley D. Watkins adapted the story into a text comics series.[21]
Television programs
In
2002 a documentary was made by National Geographic Television in collaboration
with Channel 4 in the UK: The Search for King
Solomon's Mines.
Radio
A
two-part BBC Radio 4
adaptation was broadcast in April 2017 starring Tim
McInnerny as Allan Quatermain.[23]
King
Solomon's Mines was the sixth episode of The General Mills
Radio Adventure Theater,
broadcast on February 20, 1977.[24]
References
· · "Proof
of Solomon's mines found in Israel". The Jewish Press. 8 September 2013. Retrieved 17 September
2013.
· · Boyle, Alan (5
September 2013). "Reality
check on King Solomon's mines: Right era, wrong kingdom". NBC News. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
· · Mandiringana, E.;
T. J. Stapleton (1998). "The Literary Legacy of Frederick Courteney
Selous". History in Africa. 25: 199–218. doi:10.2307/3172188. JSTOR 3172188.
· · Pearson, Edmund
Lester. "Theodore
Roosevelt, Chapter XI: The Lion Hunter". Humanities Web. Retrieved 18 December 2006.
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