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Fantasy Commentator, v. 1, issue 4, December 1944
Page 55
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FANTASY COMMENTATOR 55 of his Egyptian tales, Morning Star (1910), is highly fantastic. Here the ka, or double, of an imprisoned queen takes the latter's place while she is magically spirited elsewhere, and marries the unsuspecting pharaoh. Another historical novel of old Egypt is Queen of the Dawn (1925), likewise a thrilling tale that is worthwhile reading, though of a lesser fantasy content than Morning Star. Moon of Israel (1918), a tale of the Exodus, is excellent, and contains a good amount of ancient Egyptian magic. The description of that plagues that descended upon the country is so well done that these become vital, living events, rather than merely historical data. And Haggard's final book, Belshazzar (1930), is a glorious picture of life at the courts of ancient Babylon and Egypt, although it is primarily historical rather than a work of fantasy. This brings us to She (1887). Here, reprinted in so many editions that I doubt if accurate record of them can be compiled, is the author's most famous fantasy---though it is possibly not his best. When the novel appeared as a motion picture it was amusing to note that the producers laid the locale in the far north, whereas in the book hottest Africa was used! (A better cinematic venture was Kind Soloman's Mines, in which the original setting was more or less faithfully reproduced. Paul Robeson took the part of the exiled native chief, disguised as Quatermain's servant, and his singing---with the hills echoing back his rolling voice---is unforgettable.) Haggard wrote four novels using the character of She. The second is Ayesha: the Return of She (1905)---a mystical, fantastic tale if ever there was one---wherein the locale shifts to bleak Tibet. Haggard next attempted---possibly with an eye to sales---to unite his two most popular and profitable characters in a single novel, and thus produced the third in the series, She and Allan (1921). Here Allan Quatermain journeys to the land of Kor and meets She. Although this is admittedly a fine story, I have always felt that it was somewhat out of place to combine these two different sets of adventures. Next, the author set himself to paint a still greater canvas. In both She and its sequel, the reader will remember, he hinted of many events which had occurred in her younger days, and made veiled mention of how She had come to be in the caves of Kor, and concerning her being eternal. In the final volume of the series Haggard turns back the pages of time to Ayesha's early youth, and to her birth in ancient Egypt. Wisdom's Daughter (1923) is the book's title, and it is packed full of magic and adventurous fantasy. Unquestionably Rider Haggard's greatest fantasy---and one able to take its place among the best of all authors---is When the World Shook (1919). Here, after a number of introductory chapters that may tend to discourage the reader, though he should not allow them to do so!---here we learn of a party's discovering two crystal sarcophagi in an island cave; the two within---an old man and his beautiful daughter---turn out to be the last king and last princess of Atlantis---and they have been sleeping thus for two hundred and fifty thousand years! This book is super-fantasy, indeed, as the reader accompanies the characters on magical journeys and views a long-dead city built miles beneath the earth's surface. The stern old king claims at one time, as a penalty, to have unbalanced a huge rock, spinning in the earth's recesses, which maintains the balance of the world's crust; when he did so all lands above the sea sank, and the continents, as we know them today, rose. Now he proposes to reverse the process and raise Atlantis once more, a scheme which would of course result in the destruction of our civilization. Needless to say he is balked in this, but nevertheless the task of stopping him provides thrilling reading. Smith and the Pharaohs (1920) is a group of six short stories. The first of these is doubtless the best; here a chance museum visitor, unfortunately locked up overnight in the building by mistake, is witness to a mass reanimation of all the mummified pharaohs and queens of ancient Egypt. In The Wizard (1896) we have a tale of the struggle for spiritual supremacy over an African
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FANTASY COMMENTATOR 55 of his Egyptian tales, Morning Star (1910), is highly fantastic. Here the ka, or double, of an imprisoned queen takes the latter's place while she is magically spirited elsewhere, and marries the unsuspecting pharaoh. Another historical novel of old Egypt is Queen of the Dawn (1925), likewise a thrilling tale that is worthwhile reading, though of a lesser fantasy content than Morning Star. Moon of Israel (1918), a tale of the Exodus, is excellent, and contains a good amount of ancient Egyptian magic. The description of that plagues that descended upon the country is so well done that these become vital, living events, rather than merely historical data. And Haggard's final book, Belshazzar (1930), is a glorious picture of life at the courts of ancient Babylon and Egypt, although it is primarily historical rather than a work of fantasy. This brings us to She (1887). Here, reprinted in so many editions that I doubt if accurate record of them can be compiled, is the author's most famous fantasy---though it is possibly not his best. When the novel appeared as a motion picture it was amusing to note that the producers laid the locale in the far north, whereas in the book hottest Africa was used! (A better cinematic venture was Kind Soloman's Mines, in which the original setting was more or less faithfully reproduced. Paul Robeson took the part of the exiled native chief, disguised as Quatermain's servant, and his singing---with the hills echoing back his rolling voice---is unforgettable.) Haggard wrote four novels using the character of She. The second is Ayesha: the Return of She (1905)---a mystical, fantastic tale if ever there was one---wherein the locale shifts to bleak Tibet. Haggard next attempted---possibly with an eye to sales---to unite his two most popular and profitable characters in a single novel, and thus produced the third in the series, She and Allan (1921). Here Allan Quatermain journeys to the land of Kor and meets She. Although this is admittedly a fine story, I have always felt that it was somewhat out of place to combine these two different sets of adventures. Next, the author set himself to paint a still greater canvas. In both She and its sequel, the reader will remember, he hinted of many events which had occurred in her younger days, and made veiled mention of how She had come to be in the caves of Kor, and concerning her being eternal. In the final volume of the series Haggard turns back the pages of time to Ayesha's early youth, and to her birth in ancient Egypt. Wisdom's Daughter (1923) is the book's title, and it is packed full of magic and adventurous fantasy. Unquestionably Rider Haggard's greatest fantasy---and one able to take its place among the best of all authors---is When the World Shook (1919). Here, after a number of introductory chapters that may tend to discourage the reader, though he should not allow them to do so!---here we learn of a party's discovering two crystal sarcophagi in an island cave; the two within---an old man and his beautiful daughter---turn out to be the last king and last princess of Atlantis---and they have been sleeping thus for two hundred and fifty thousand years! This book is super-fantasy, indeed, as the reader accompanies the characters on magical journeys and views a long-dead city built miles beneath the earth's surface. The stern old king claims at one time, as a penalty, to have unbalanced a huge rock, spinning in the earth's recesses, which maintains the balance of the world's crust; when he did so all lands above the sea sank, and the continents, as we know them today, rose. Now he proposes to reverse the process and raise Atlantis once more, a scheme which would of course result in the destruction of our civilization. Needless to say he is balked in this, but nevertheless the task of stopping him provides thrilling reading. Smith and the Pharaohs (1920) is a group of six short stories. The first of these is doubtless the best; here a chance museum visitor, unfortunately locked up overnight in the building by mistake, is witness to a mass reanimation of all the mummified pharaohs and queens of ancient Egypt. In The Wizard (1896) we have a tale of the struggle for spiritual supremacy over an African
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