I'd never read this classic of adventure-fantasy before. For some reason, I'd always assumed the the author was a contemporary of Robert E. Howard, and that it was published sometime in the 1930s or thereabouts. Not so! It was published in 1887! She: A History of Adventure is a novel by H. Rider Haggard. First printed in a series of installments for the magazine The Graphic in the winter of 1886-87, it was one of the first pieces of serial literature to reach a large popular audience. Told in the first person by the protagonist, Horace Holly, the story concerns his expedition with his friend’s son, Leo Vincey to a forgotten mythologized kingdom in the heart of Africa. Upon reaching the dense jungle in the interior of the continent, they befall a civilization of native people ruled by a queen, Ayesha, who appears to be white. Ayesha is hailed simply as “She,” stemming from the natives’ mantra, “She-who-must-be-obeyed.” The novel is best known for inaugurating the archetype of the “lost world,” which has since been recapitulated countless times by authors, such as H.G. Wells, and franchises, such as Jurassic Park.

By midday we reached the Letaba Valley, in the Majajes Mountains, inhabited by a powerful tribe of natives once ruled by a princess said to be the prototype of Rider Haggard's "She". [29] [30] Publication [ edit ] In 1875, Haggard was sent to Cape Town, South Africa as secretary to Sir Henry Bulwer, the lieutenant-governor of Natal. Haggard wrote in his memoirs of his aspirations to become a colonial governor himself, and of his youthful excitement at the prospects. [5] The major event during his time in Africa was Britain's annexation of the Transvaal in 1877. Haggard was part of the expedition that established British control over the Boer republic, and which helped raise the Union flag over the capital of Pretoria on 24 May 1877. Writing of the moment, Haggard declared:And, of course, the inimitable Ayesha, "She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed", the sibilant siren who would rival Medusa for her killing abilities but whose beauty and allure is wondrous beyond compare. Principal photography commenced in southern Israel's Negev Desert on 24 August 1964, with scenes also shot at MGM's Elstree Studios near London when Hammer's Bray Studios proved to be too small for the project. [5] It was the most expensive film Hammer had made up until that time, [1] but on release, it was a hit both in North America and in Europe. [5] By the time that Haggard began writing She, society had more anxiety about the role of women. Debates regarding "The Woman Question" dominated Britain during the fin de siècle, as well as anxieties over the increasing position and independence of the " New Woman". [20] Alarm over social degeneration and societal decadence further fanned concerns over the women's movement and female liberation, which challenged the traditional conception of Victorian womanhood. [21] The role and rights of women had changed dramatically since the early part of the century, as they entered the workforce, received better education, and gained more political and legal independence. Writing in 1894, Haggard believed that marriage was the natural state for women: "Notwithstanding the energetic repudiations of the fact that confront us at every turn, it may be taken for granted that in most cases it is the natural mission of women to marry; that – always in most cases – if they do not marry they become narrowed, live a half life only, and suffer in health of body and of mind." [22] He created the character of She-who-must-be-obeyed "who provided a touchstone for many of the anxieties surrounding the New Woman in late-Victorian England". [23] Concept and creation [ edit ] After Leo has recovered from the journey to Kuma, Ayesha persuades him to bathe in the ceremonial fire that she had bathed in 2,000 years before by which she gained her immortality. One can bathe in the flame only when it has turned blue, which it does rarely for short periods of time when astronomical events coincide. Leo would then himself become immortal.

She, subtitled A History of Adventure, is a novel by the English writer H. Rider Haggard, published in book form in 1887 following serialisation in The Graphic magazine between October 1886 and January 1887. She was extraordinarily popular upon its release and has never been out of print.

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She has been adapted for the cinema at least eleven times, beginning with the 1899 short film The Pillar of Fire, directed by Georges Méliès, [109] followed by another short film directed by Edwin S. Porter in 1908. An American 1911 version starred Marguerite Snow, a British-produced version appeared in 1916, and in 1917 Valeska Suratt appeared in a production for Fox which is lost. In 1925 a silent film of She, starring Betty Blythe, was produced with the active participation of Rider Haggard, who wrote the intertitles. The film combines elements from all the books in the series. Horace Holly – protagonist and narrator, Holly is a Cambridge man whose keen intellect and knowledge were developed to compensate for his ape-like appearance. Holly knows a number of ancient languages, including Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew, which allow him to communicate with the Amahagger (who speak a form of Arabic) and She (who knows all three languages). Holly's interest in archaeology and the origins of civilisation lead him to explore the ruins of Kôr. 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." Cohen, C (1968). Rider Haggard: His life and works. United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan UK. ISBN 1349006025. The film was announced in May 1964. Although Seven Arts had helped finance several Hammer films, this was the first one they had produced together. [6]

At the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 the H. Jay Smith Exploring Company presented an exhibit of artefacts from the American Southwest featuring objects and human remains of the Basketmaker and Cliff Dweller ( Ancestral Puebloan) cultures. The exhibit featured a mummy that had been preserved naturally by the southwestern climate and that was given the name "She". [ citation needed] Adaptations [ edit ]Auerbach, Nina (1982). Woman and the Demon: The Life of a Victorian Myth. London: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-95407-6. The curtain agitated itself a little, then suddenly between its folds there appeared a most beautiful white hand (white as snow), and with long tapering fingers, ending in the pinkest nails. The hand grasped the curtain and drew it aside, and as it did so I heard a voice, I think the softest and yet most silvery voice I ever heard. It reminded me of the murmur of a brook.” Love is a strange currency in this story. Once the story goes to Africa, love means something different in their culture. Ustane's love for Leo is sudden and strangely unwarranted, but she felt connected to him from the first moment they met. Leo really likes her too, actually. But the novel features a super-human villain named Ayesha who is either a goddess or a witch (depending on which characters you ask), and Ayesha is so beautiful that Leo is perplexed by her. When Ustane refuses to relinquish her husband to Ayesha, Ayesha kills her. Why? Because Leo is the reincarnation of her lover, whom she murdered and has been waiting for. In this novel, love is the subject of much analysis, but none of the pictures of love are really substantial except for one: Ustane's sacrificial love for Leo is good and noble, although it seems random, given that they don't even understand each other. Immortality and death Oh, and let me in closing that as well-trained, happily married man, the concept of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed is pretty old hat for me. Now a story about He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed….that would be a truly imaginative tale full of fantastical elements, but it would take a seriously creative person to write it.

Hammer pitched the project to Disney, who turned it down. Hinds then arranged for Berkley Mather to write a script, but the project was turned down again by Universal, and then by Joseph E. Levine and American International Pictures. Hinds passed it over to Michael Carreras who got David T. Chantler to rewrite the script. Carreras succeeded in getting the film financed through MGM, [1] with triple the usual budget for a Hammer film. [5] Leo Vincey is the secondary protagonist of She, a young, fit Englishman. Over the course of the novel, he becomes romantically involved with Ustane, a Amahagger woman. He is described as handsome and confident. Ayesha

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Various scholars have detected a number of analogues to She in earlier literature. According to Brantlinger, Haggard certainly read the stories of Edward Bulwer-Lytton, in particular A Strange Story (1862), which includes a mysterious veiled woman called "Ayesha", and The Coming Race (1871), which is about the discovery of a subterranean civilisation. [26] Similarly, the name of the underground civilisation in She, known as Kôr, is derived from Norse mythological romance, where the deathbed of the goddess Hel is called Kör, which means "disease" in Old Norse. [27] In She, a plague destroyed the original inhabitants of Kôr. Let’s get one thing out of the way first: yes, this book is very much a product of its time. It concerns a group of British men exploring Africa, so you can imagine that the racial politics are…not ideal. Also the central “She” of the book, the goddess/demon ruler of a lost civilization, is described as impossibly beautiful, which means she has to also be white, logic be damned. In short, this is an adventure story written by old white dudes, for old white dudes, so buyer beware. I must write to congratulate you upon a work which most certainly puts you at the head – a long away ahead—of all contemporary imaginative writers. If fiction is best cultivated in the field of pure invention then you are certainly the first of modern novelists.