Rider Haggard wrote fifty-eight novels including many historical romances, but is most well known for his adventure stories for boys. His best fiction works are so imaginatively powerful that they have provided the basis for thirty films. Haggard also wrote several important studies of the conditions of rural labour that are still used as historical resources. He was extraordinarily famous in his time and well into the twentieth century but his imperialist views, idealistic though they were, attracted criticism in his own lifetime and remain grounds for criticism of his work. Nevertheless, his books were a staple for boys: it is unusual to find a male writer or a male public figure born before 1940 who was not an early reader of Haggard: Edgar Wallace, John Buchan, William Golding, Graham…
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Citation: Manthorpe, Victoria. "Henry Rider Haggard". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 November 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1929, accessed 23 November 2024.]
