The New Student's Reference Work/Haggard, Henry Rider

HENRY RIDER HAGGARD

Hag′gard, Henry Rider, an English novelist of note, was born June 22, 1856, at Bradenham Hall, Norfolk. He was educated at Ipswich, and in 1875 went as private secretary of Sir Henry Bulwer to Natal, South Africa. Later, he was private secretary to Sir T. Shepstone, commissioner to the Transvaal, and still later was made master of the high court of the Transvaal. In 1879 he returned to England and began his literary career. In 1882 Cetewayo and His White Neighbors was published, and in 1884 his first novel, Dawn, appeared, and The Witch's Head in 1885. The publication of King Solomon's Mines, 1886, gave him wide celebrity, and this was followed by She and Jess in 1887. Among his later novels may be mentioned Allan Quatermain, Cleopatra, Ayesha and The Heart of the World. He was, while he followed his peculiar vein, regarded as a master of the weird and fantastic in fiction. Of recent years he has taken a deep interest in all rural problems, and has written Rural England, a standard work upon English agriculture, and The Poor and the Land. In 1905 he visited the United States, as a British government commissioner, for the purpose of investigating the problems of land-settlement and labor-colonies. He is a member of the royal commission on coast erosion.