Mr. Meeson's Will (Esprios Classics) - H. Rider Haggard

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Résumé :
Sir Henry Rider Haggard KBE (1856-1925) was a Victorian writer of adventure novels set in exotic locations. After failing his army entrance exam he was sent to a private 'crammer' in London to prepare for the entrance exam for the British Foreign Office, for which he never sat. Haggard's father sent him to Africa in an unpaid position as assistant to the secretary to Lieutenant-Governor of Natal Sir Henry Bulwer. Heavily influenced by the larger-than-life adventurers he met in Colonial Africa, the great mineral wealth discovered in Africa, and the ruins of ancient lost civilizations in Africa such as Great Zimbabwe, Haggard created his Allan Quatermain adventures. Haggard also wrote about agricultural and social issues reform, in part inspired by his experiences in Africa, but also based on what he saw in Europe....

Biographie:
H. Rider Haggard was born on 22 June, 1856 in Braden ham, situated in the English area of Norfolk. His father, Sir William Meybohm Rider Haggard, was a lawyer, while his mother, Ella Dove ton Haggard, was an author herself. The couple had ten children, out of which Henry was conceived as the eighth. Sir Henry Rider Haggard was an English author who was known for his African thriller novel, 'Lord Solomon's Mines'. His father was a Norfolk advocate but he was denied an honourable men's schooling compared to his siblings due to his physical bluntness. At 19 years old, he started his vocation at the command of his father as an unpaid guide to Lieutenant-Governor of the Colony of Natal. Rider Haggard was married to a Norfolk beneficiary Marianna Louisa Margitson. They had four children named Jack, who died at the age of 10 due to measles, and three girls named Angela, Dorothy, and Lilias. Rider Haggard died at the age of 68 in London. His remains were cremated at St Mary's Church, Ditchingham. A rail route point of the Canadian National Railway in British Columbia has been named after him....

Sommaire:
H. Rider Haggard was an English novelist, colonial administrator, agricultural reformer, and one of the central figures in the development of modern adventure fiction. He was born Henry Rider Haggard in Norfolk, England, in 1856, and spent part of his young adulthood in southern Africa, where he worked in the colonial service. That experience gave him material, settings, and political assumptions that shaped much of his fiction, especially his stories of exploration, empire, ancient kingdoms, hidden peoples, and dangerous quests.Haggard became famous with King Solomon's Mines, first published in 1885, a novel that introduced Allan Quatermain and helped establish the lost-world adventure as a powerful popular form. Its success was followed by Allan Quatermain, She, Ayesha, Nada the Lily, Montezuma's Daughter, The People of the Mist, and many other novels. His books combined fast-moving action, exotic landscapes, mysterious civilizations, supernatural suggestion, romance, and imperial-era adventure in a style that influenced later pulp fiction, lost-race stories, jungle adventure, fantasy, and cinematic adventure heroes.Allan Quatermain remains Haggard's most enduring male hero: a hunter, guide, observer, and reluctant adventurer whose toughness is often tempered by humility, fatalism, and melancholy. Haggard's work is also historically complicated. His fiction reflects the racial, imperial, and colonial attitudes of its age, yet it often shows more interest in African cultures, oral tradition, leadership, and moral courage than many adventure novels of the same period. That tension is part of why his books remain important artifacts of Victorian popular literature.Beyond fiction, Haggard wrote on agriculture, rural life, and land policy, subjects he took seriously throughout his later career. He was knighted in 1912 and died in 1925. His influence continued long after his death, especially through adventure fiction, fantasy, lost-world stories, and the broad tradition of expeditionary romance. Writers and filmmakers who built stories around ancient secrets, hidden kingdoms, perilous journeys, and larger-than-life explorers worked in territory Haggard helped define....