King Solomon's Mines

by H. Rider Haggard, Eça de Queirós, Rider Haggard H.

Book Overview

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1593082754
• ISBN13: 9781593082758
• Release Date: November 2004
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble Classics
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Loved it! by R.B. From Annapolis

If you like adventure, you are going to love King Solomon's Mines written by H. Rider Haggard. This book has high, cold mountains dry, burning deserts and tight underground places. The main characters are Sir Henry, Mr. Quartermain, Captain Good and Umbopa whose real name was Ignosi. They are trying to find King Solomon's diamond mines but along the way they find a kakuana land, which delays them there for awhile. My favorite character in this book is Sir Henry because he was big, strong and handsome guy who was nice to the animals. Some of the characters reminded me of Indiana Jones because he goes on adventures just like the people in the book did. My text-to-self connection was I have gone a mission and have gotten a group together just like they did. My favorite part of this book was when Sir Henry killed the evil King Twala. I would not like to change anything in this book. A good age to be at if you want to read this book is 8 to14. I hope that you can read this wonderful book soon.

If you are thinking Debra Kerr you will be shocked.

I grew up on the movie so it was quit a shocker to read the book. As stated in the beginning there are no petticoated women in this book. It is a men's adventure written by a man for men. You can not miss the hand of H. Rider Haggard as he has a unique sense of humor that pops up at the strangest times. And as with written stories this one is much more intricate than the movie adaptations. You will find many assumptions of the time such as any complex construction must have been built by white people and natives on their own may turn savage. The story is told first person by Allan Quartermain. Nevil is off to make his fortune by finding King Solomon's lost diamond mines. Allan sends him a map to help. This is the last anyone heard from Nevil. Turns out that Nevil is really the estranged brother of Henry Curtis. Sir Henry Curtis now wants to make amends and he with his friend Captain John Good, bribe Allan Quartermain to take them across an endless desert and trough impassible mountains to an adventure that will hold you to the very end. Along with them is their self imposed helper Umbopa who carries a secret of his own. King Solomon's Mines Starring: Deborah Kerr, Stewart Granger

Imperial Minds

When the film RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK was released in 1981, more than one commentator observed that its hero owed much to another fictional adventurer introduced almost a century before: Allan Quartermain, the creation of Victorian novelist H. Rider Haggard. (And that the actor who later played Indiana Jones's father would go on to interpret his other 'father' as well creates a sort of symmetry.) It is worth noting, however, that in KING SOLOMON'S MINES, the first of 16 novels and numerous short-stories to feature him, Quartermain appears as a small man in his mid-fifties, with false teeth and a bad leg, who seems to take pride in regularly declaring himself a coward. The Jones comparisons owe more to later, adjusted depictions of Haggard's protagonist in both print and performance. The modern reader may also find discomforting the cultural and racial condescension (at best) which the character expresses as a British imperialist in southern Africa. Careful attention to the unfolding story, however, suggests that the author, if hardly immune to the prejudices of his day, sensed something of their fallacy. His native African people gradually emerge as fully developed, and fully human, individuals -- capable not only of either great nobility, wisdom, and intelligence or wretched evil, but of a complete spectrum of intermediate humours. Quartermain himself undergoes a broadening of outlook through his experience, so that for a while at least he comes to address (and perhaps truly to regard) as equals people he had previously felt should 'know their place'. Later, reflecting on his adventures, he recoils at old pejoratives which still habitually turn up in his vocabulary, and he writes to his son, 'What is a gentleman? ... I've known natives who ARE, and ... mean whites with lots of money and fresh out from home, too, who ARE NOT.' Given the period in which Haggard was himself writing, this is a remarkable insight. Still, it is a mistake to read the novel as an early parable on social conscience. The author's purpose was simply to compose a rousing tale of 'derring-do' in the spirit of Stevenson's TREASURE ISLAND, and in this he achieved adequate success. That he also provides a contemporary glimpse into the absurdities and injustices of a bygone era is a bonus he probably never foresaw.

If you are thinking Debra Kerr you will be shocked.

I grew up on the movie so it was quit a shocker to read the book. As stated in the beginning there are no petticoated women in this book. It is a men's adventure written by a man for men. You can not miss the hand of H. Rider Haggard as he has a unique sense of humor that pops up at the strangest times. He may be a little verbose but every word has a use. And as with written stories this one is much more intricate than the movie adaptations. You will find many assumptions of the time such as any complex construction must have been built by white people and natives on their own may turn savage. The story is told first person by Allan Quartermain. Nevil is off to make his fortune by finding King Solomon's lost diamond mines. Allan sends him a 300 year old map to help. This is the last anyone heard from Nevil. Turns out that Nevil is really the estranged brother of Henry Curtis. Sir Henry Curtis now wants to make amends and he with his friend Captain John Good, bribe Allan Quartermain to take them across an endless desert and trough impassible mountains to an adventure that will hold you to the very end. Along with them is their self imposed helper Umbopa who carries a secret of his own. If you get a chance to also hear the recording, an added plus is narration by John Richmond; He brings the characters to life and adds to the mystique that this story has been passed down. King Solomon's Mines Starring: Deborah Kerr, Stewart Granger

Great Enjoyment in this Classic Adventure Story

Reading "King Solomon's Mines" reminded me of the joke about the guy who sees his first Shakespere play, and when asked what he thought of it, said, "real good, but so many cliches". So it is with this classic adventure story: so much of the action and plot devices were similar to what I remembered from other adventure stories (and comic books and movies), yet Rider Haggard came decades earlier. Here is one of the prototypes (along with Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island", written just a few years earlier) of the modern adventure-action story. There is lots to admire in this well crafted story: great action, excitement, characters, and exotic locations. If there's a kid you know that only wants to watch television or play video games, read this book with him or her. It shows what words on a page can do in the imagination of the reader.It is also interesting to see the book in its historical perspective. "King Solomon's Mines", 1885, records European ignorance of and fascination with Africa, which was still partly (as Joseph Conrad later called it in "Heart of Darkness") a blank area on the map: The source of the Nile had been discovered only two decades earlier; Henry Stanley and Richard Burton were still living, the memories of David Livingstone and John Speke were still fresh; and the Berlin Africa Conference was taking place just as the novel was going into print. If that's not of interest to you, skip it. Want to curl up with a good book? Here's one for you and your kids.