Allan Quatermain is the protagonist of H. Rider Haggard's 1885 novel King Solomon's Mines, its one sequel Allan Quatermain (1887), twelve prequel novels and four prequel short stories, totalling eighteen works. An English professional big game hunter and adventurer, in film and television he has been portrayed by Richard Chamberlain, Sean Connery, Cedric Hardwicke, Patrick Swayze and Stewart Granger among others.

History

thumb|right|Allan Quatermain, having waited until the last minute, orders his men to fire in this illustration by [[Thure de Thulstrup from Maiwa's Revenge (1888)]]

The character Quatermain is an English-born professional big game hunter and occasional trader living in South Africa. An outdoorsman who finds English cities and climate unbearable, he prefers to spend most of his life in Africa, where he grew up under the care of his widower father, a Christian missionary.

In the earliest novels, native Africans refer to Quatermain as Macumazahn, meaning "Watcher-by-Night," a reference to his nocturnal habits and keen instincts. In later novels, Macumazahn is said to be a short form of Macumazana, meaning "One who stands out." Quatermain is frequently accompanied by his native servant, the Hottentot Hans, a wise and caring family retainer from his youth. His sarcastic comments offer a sharp critique of European conventions. Though Hans is identified as a “Hottenot” throughout his appearances in six Quatermain novels, "Hottentot" is now considered an offensive and outdated term; "Khoisan" is the preferred term. In his final adventures, Quatermain is joined by two British companions, Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good of the Royal Navy, and by his Zulu friend Umslopogaas.

Appearance and character

The series spans 50 years of Quatermain's life, from 18 to 68; at the start of the foundation novel King Solomon's Mines he has just turned 55 , giving him a birthdate of 1830. Physically, he is small, wiry, and unattractive, with a beard and short hair that sticks up. His one skill is his marksmanship, where he has no equal. Quatermain is aware that as a professional hunter, he has helped to destroy his beloved wild free places of Africa. In old age he hunts without pleasure, having no other means of making a living, aside from trading.

About Quatermain's family, little is written. He lives at Durban, in Natal, South Africa. He marries twice, but is quickly widowed both times. He entrusts the printing of memoirs in the series to his son Harry, whose death he mourns in the opening of the novel Allan Quatermain. Harry Quatermain is a medical student who dies of smallpox while working in a hospital. Haggard did not write the Quatermain novels in chronological order, and made errors with some details. Quatermain's birth, age at the time of his marriages, and age at the time of his death cannot be reconciled to the apparent date of Harry's birth and age at death.

Series

Composition

Haggard wrote fourteen novels and four short stories featuring Quatermain, beginning with King Solomon's Mines (1885). From 1885 to 1889 he wrote four of the novels and three of the short stories, including King Solomon's Mines and its sequel Allan Quatermain (1887). Haggard wrote this sequel in the summer of 1885, immediately after producing King Solomon's Mines, but Allan Quatermain was only published two years later in 1887. The other Quatermain stories from this period are "Hunter Quatermain's Story" (1885), "Long Odds" (1886), "A Tale of Three Lions" (1887), Maiwa's Revenge (1888), and Allan's Wife and Other Tales (1889). The latter book collected the previous short stories as well as a new novelette. After the publication of Allan's Wife, Haggard abandoned the Quatermain series for two decades. Then, from around April to August 1909, Haggard wrote Child of Storm, originally intending it to be a stand-alone Quatermain novel. However, during or after its composition, Haggard decided to make Child of Storm the second part of a trilogy of new Quatermain books, beginning with Marie, published in 1912. Marie was the first new Quatermain story for twenty-three years. It was followed by a short story, "Magepa the Buck" (1912), and then by Child of Storm (1913), published four years after its composition in mid-1909. Haggard continued to write more Quatermain stories until his death in 1925; the final two books in the series, The Treasure of the Lake (1926) and Allan and the Ice-Gods (1927), were published posthumously.

Subdivisions

Although some of Haggard's Quatermain novels stand alone, there are a few important sub-series. In the Zulu trilogy, Marie (1912), Child of Storm (1913), and Finished (1917), Quatermain becomes ensnared in the vengeance of Zikali, the dwarf wizard known as "the-thing-that-should-never-have-been-born" and "Opener-of-Roads." Zikali plots and finally achieves the overthrow of the Zulu royal House of Senzangakona, founded by Chaka and ending under Cetewayo (Cetshwayo kaMpande) (Haggard's spelling of Zulu names is used in the first instance, with the currently used versions in brackets).

These novels are prequels to the foundation pair, King Solomon's Mines (1885) and Allan Quatermain (1887), which describe Quatermain's discovery of vast wealth, his discontent with a life of ease, and his return to Africa following the death of his son Harry.

The Holy Flower (1915) paved the way for a trilogy of Quatermain books involving the Taduki drug, which induces clairvoyance and visions: The Ivory Child (1916), The Ancient Allan (1920), and Allan and the Ice-Gods (1927). The latter two books involve Quatermain experiencing his past lives through the use of Taduki.

With She and Allan (1921), Haggard engineered a crossover between his two most popular series, uniting Quatermain with Ayesha, the central character of his hugely successful She novels, and bringing in several other key characters from each series—Hans, Umslopogaas, and Zikali from the Quatermain series, and Billali, Ayesha's faithful minister. This book formed the third part of the "She" trilogy, although in chronological terms, it necessarily served as a prequel to the first two "She" books, since Allan Quatermain's meeting with Ayesha in She and Allan is implied to be before the discovery of Kôr by Ludwig Horace Holly and Leo Vincey as narrated in She, the first Ayesha book.

Summaries of the stories

King Solomon's Mines (1885)

A sixty-year-old Allan Quatermain travels with two fellow Englishmen (Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good) through a remote region of southern Africa with the aim of locating Curtis' missing brother and the lost diamond mines of King Solomon. They cross plains, deserts and mountain ranges on their quest. Quatermain, Curtis and Good reach the lost kingdom of Kukuanaland, inhabited by a warlike race related to the Zulus, and find themselves involved in a bloody struggle for the Kukuana throne.

"Hunter Quatermain's Story" (1885)

At a dinner-party in Yorkshire, Quatermain recounts a memorable encounter with a buffalo he once had on a South African hunting expedition. The short story features Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good as minor characters. It also includes a character called the Hottentot Hans, but this is not the same Hottentot Hans who appeared in Marie (1912) and its sequels.

"Long Odds" (1886)

Quatermain describes how a lion mauled his leg on a hunting expedition. This event is referenced in King Solomon's Mines and other stories several times.

Allan Quatermain: An Account of His Further Adventures and Discoveries in Company with Sir Henry Curtis, Bart., Commander John Good, R.N., and One Umslopogaas (1887)

Three years after the events of King Solomon's Mines, Quatermain, Curtis and Good return to Africa to locate a "great white race" hidden in the heart of the Dark Continent. They travel with Umslopogaas, the mighty Zulu warrior, and find the lost world of Zu-Vendis, inhabited by a race of sun-worshippers possibly descended from ancient Persians or Phoenicians. Chronologically this is the last of the Quatermain stories, although it was published early on; Haggard did not write the stories in chronological order.

"A Tale of Three Lions" (1887)

In the third of the four Allan Quatermain short stories, Quatermain and his son Harry prospect for gold and seek revenge for their faithful servant Jim-Jim after he is killed by a lion.

Allan's Wife (1889)

This novella tells the story of Allan Quatermain's youth in Africa, and of his marriage to Stella Carson. The story involves Quatermain's father, as well as the Zulu character Indaba-zimbi and the evil baboon-woman Hendrika. While this is speculation, Kipling acknowledged that Haggard's Nada the Lily (1892) was vital in his creation of Mowgli. The Ivory Child is the first book in the series to involve the Taduki drug, a mystical herb which induces clairvoyant visions. (Robert E. Howard, who admired Haggard's work, later referenced this drug in one of his own early fragments.)

Finished (1917)

In the final part of the Zulu Trilogy, Zikali wreaks revenge on the royal Zulu house. The book is during the Zulu War of 1879, and includes Allan Quatermain as a fighter at Isandhlwana.

The Ancient Allan (1920)

In the sequel to The Ivory Child, Allan Quatermain and Lady Luna Ragnall take the Taduki drug and witness previous incarnations of themselves as well as of other characters from the series (the Hottentot Hans, Lord Ragnall, Harût and Jana) in Egypt under Achaemenid Persian rule. Along with its sequel Allan and the Ice-Gods, this is the only book in the Allan Quatermain series not to be set in nineteenth century Africa.

Heu-Heu; or, The Monster (1924)

In Heu-Heu, Allan and Hans encounter a grotesque cave-painting in southern Africa depicting a fiendish gorilla-monster called Heu-Heu. Zikali then sends the pair to Heuheualand, the home of Heu-Heu, to obtain a powerful drug he claims to be even stronger than Taduki, and to rescue the daughter of a lost race's chief from being sacrificed to Heu-Heu.

The Treasure of the Lake (1926)

In this posthumously published Quatermain adventure, Allan and Hans travel with a strange sorcerer called Kaneke to Mone-land. This strange lost world is located in the crater of a volcano and is inhabited by the Dabanda people (the nation to whom Kaneke himself belongs), who have attained to high mystical powers and who worship a goddess living on an island in Lake Mone. Allan and Hans meet an Englishman called John Taurus Arkle, who becomes the Chieftain of the Dabanda. While they are in Mone-land they experience many strange and frightening displays of occult powers.

Allan and the Ice-Gods: A Tale of Beginnings (1927)

In this sequel to The Ancient Allan, Quatermain again takes the Taduki drug, and witnesses his life in the last great Ice Age, when he was a chieftain called Wi. Allan and the Ice-Gods is the last Quatermain story, and Haggard's friend Rudyard Kipling helped him with the plot. It is set shortly before the events of Allan Quatermain.

The Ayesha Series (1887 – 1923)

The Ayesha series comprises four adventure novels by Haggard: She (1887), Ayesha: The Return of She (1905), She and Allan (1921), and Wisdom's Daughter (1923). Of these only She and Allan is part of the Quatermain series, although Quatermain is mentioned in Wisdom's Daughter. (In the opening lines of that book, Ayesha refers to "one Allan, a wandering hunter of beasts and a fighting man of good blood who visited me at Kôr, though of this I said nothing to Holly or to my lord Kallikrates, now known as Leo or the Lion, because as to this Allan I held it wiser to be silent.") The books tell the story of Ayesha, a beautiful and immortal sorceress from ancient Arabia who travelled throughout the ancient world, finally concealing herself in the ruins of the city of Kôr around 339 BC. Here she killed the man she loved, Kallikrates, in a fit of jealousy, and was forced to await his reincarnation in the dim vaults and tombs of the dead city for two thousand years. The return of her lover is the premise of She and Ayesha, while the other two books are set before Kallikrates' reincarnation.

Nada the Lily (1892)

Nada the Lily is a historical fantasy and adventure romance set in Zululand and surrounding areas under the rule of two of its kings, Chaka (ruled 1816 – 1828) and Dingaan (r. 1828 – 1840). It narrates the story of the youth of Umslopogaas as told by his foster-father, the witch-doctor Mopo. Allan Quatermain is mentioned in the final pages of the book under his Zulu name, Macumazahn.

"Black Heart and White Heart: A Zulu Idyll" (1900)

The novella "Black Heart and White Heart" was collected in the book Elissa. While it bears no obvious connexion to the Quatermain series, it is set in Zululand and features similar characters.

The Ghost Kings (1908)

The Ghost Kings is set near Zululand and involves Mopo from Nada the Lily, meaning it is in the same universe as the Quatermain series.

Themes

All but two of the Quatermain stories are set in Africa in a period spanning the 1830s to the 1880s. Most or indeed all of the books include battles and other large-scale military engagements.

In the Quatermain stories, as in the rest of Haggard's oeuvre – he wrote fifty-eight fiction books in total, as well as several volumes of non-fiction – the action is interspersed with philosophical reflections. Quatermain frequently enters into monologues wherein he muses on many subjects, among them Africa, God, Fate, morality, and life.

In his essay "H. Rider Haggard's Character Hans the Hottentot," Thomas Kent Miller writes that "Haggard successfully made Fate a character in many of his books. It seemed to me that his stories did not come alive due to characterizations or plot developments so much as they did to turnings of Fate."

King Solomon's Mines, Allan Quatermain, The Holy Flower, The Ivory Child, She and Allan, Heu-Heu, and The Treasure of the Lake all are examples of the lost world or lost race subgenre. Although the idea of lost peoples had precedents in earlier stories such as Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838) and Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race (1871), the lost world tale was largely invented and popularised by Haggard. Aside from the Quatermain lost world stories, Haggard wrote several other books in the same subgenre. His other lost world-lost race romances are She (1887), The People of the Mist (1894), Heart of the World (1895), Ayesha: The Return of She (1905), Benita: An African Romance (1906), The Ghost Kings (1908), The Yellow God: An Idol of Africa (1908), Queen Sheba's Ring (1910), and When the World Shook (1919). Scores of writers followed Haggard's lost world formula, among them his friends Rudyard Kipling and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as such authors as C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne, Francis Henry Atkins, William Bury Westall, Thomas Allibone Janvier, H. G. Wells, James Francis Hogan, Ernest Favenc, William Le Queux, Francis Stevens (Gertrude Barrows Bennett), Baroness Orczy, William Hope Hodgson, Percy James Brebner, Willis George Emerson, A. Merritt, Edgar Rice Burroughs, H. Bedford-Jones, Talbot Mundy, Alpheus Hyatt Verrill, Harl Vincent, E. C. Vivian, F. Van Wyck Mason, Eric Temple Bell, S.P. Meek, James Hilton, Edmond Hamilton, Frederick Carruthers Cornell, Robert Ames Bennet, Pierre Benoit, Harold Lamb, Arthur O. Friel, T.S. Stribling, Gilbert Henry Collins, Louis Gompertz, Otis Adelbert Kline, Ray Cummings, Joseph O'Neill, Edison Marshall, Dennis Wheatley, Howard Browne, Stanton A. Coblentz, Cecil Bernard Rutley, Rex Stout, Lester Dent, Victor Rousseau Emanuel, Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Philip José Farmer, Perley Poore Sheehan, Victor Wallace Germains, Milton Scott Michel, Henry Kuttner, Lin Carter, Louis L'amour, Donald G. Payne, Lionel Davidson, Michael Crichton, Jeremy Robinson, and other writers of adventure and fantasy fiction to this day.

Mysticism and occultism are prevalent in the Quatermain stories and other works by Haggard. They frequently take the form of metempsychosis, telepathy, elements related to Ancient Egypt and its religion, and the Zulu religion. A common theme relating to metempsychosis and reincarnation in Haggard's works is what R.D. Mullen the "recurring triangle." In Mullen's words: