Review: She by H. Rider Haggard
20 Books of Summer 2017: Book 4
I first read She for a British Imperial Lit course when my workload didn’t allow a leisurely pace. The professor was especially keen on well-used/integrated quotes so my first time through this book was a mad rush for themes and quotables. Fortunately, imperialist themes are easy to pick out…
Writing ‘at white heat’, and in the flush of success after the publication of King Solomon’s Mines, Haggard drew again on his knowledge of Africa and of ancient legends, but also on something deeper and more disturbing. To the Englishmen who journey through shipwreck, fever, and cannibals to her hidden realm, She is the goal of a quest bequeathed to them two thousand years before; to Haggard’s readers, She is the embodiment of one of the most potent and ambivalent figures of Western mythology, a female who is both monstrous and desirable—and, without question, deadlier than the male! (back cover of the Oxford World Classics edition)