SHE: A HISTORY OF ADVENTURE by H. Rider Haggard

She, subtitled A History of Adventure, is a novel by Henry Rider Haggard, first serialized in The Graphic magazine from October 1886 to January 1887.She is one of the classics of imaginative literature, and with over 83 million copies sold in 44 different languages, one of the best-selling books of all time. Extraordinarily popular upon its release, She has never been out of print. According to the literary historian Andrew M. Stauffer, "She has always been Rider Haggard's most popular and influential novel, challenged only by King Solomon's Mines in this regard".


From the book

In giving to the world the record of what, looked at as an adventure only, is I

suppose one of the most wonderful and mysterious experiences ever undergone by

mortal men, I feel it incumbent on me to explain what my exact connection with it is.

And so I may as well say at once that I am not the narrator but only the editor of this

extraordinary history, and then go on to tell how it found its way into my hands.

Some years ago I, the editor, was stopping with a friend, “vir doctissimus et amicus

meus,” at a certain university, which for the purposes of this history we will call

Cambridge, and was one day much struck with the appearance of two people whom I

saw going arm-in-arm down the street. One of these gentlemen was I think, without

exception, the handsomest young fellow I have ever seen. He was very tall, very broad,

and had a look of power and a grace of bearing that seemed as native to him as it is to a

wild stag. In addition his face was almost without flaw- a good face as well as a

beautiful one, and when he lifted his hat, which he did just then to a passing lady, I

saw that his head was covered with little golden curls growing close to the scalp.

“Good gracious!” I said to my friend, with whom I was walking, “why, that fellow

looks like a statue of Apollo come to life. What a splendid man he is!”

“Yes,” he answered, “he is the handsomest man in the university, and one of the nicest

too. They call him ‘the Greek god’; but look at the other one, he’s Vincey’s (that’s the

god’s name) guardian, and supposed to be full of every kind of information. They call

him ‘Charon.’” I looked, and found the older man quite as interesting in his way as the

glorified specimen of humanity at his side. He appeared to be about forty years of age,

and was I think as ugly as his companion was handsome. To begin with, he was

shortish, rather bow-legged, very deep chested, and with unusually long arms. He had

dark hair and small eyes, and the hair grew right down on his forehead, and his

whiskers grew right up to his hair, so that there was uncommonly little of his

countenance to be seen. Altogether he reminded me forcibly of a gorilla, and yet there

was something very pleasing and genial about the man’s eye. I remember saying that I

should like to know him.

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