H. Rider Haggard (Sir Henry Rider Haggard) was an English author who was known for his African thriller novel, 'Lord Solomon's Mines'. His father was a Norfolk advocate but he was denied an honourable men's schooling compared to his siblings due to his physical bluntness. Yet he was taught at Ipswich Grammar School. At nineteen years old, he started his vocation at the command of his father as an unpaid guide to Lieutenant-Governor of the Colony of Natal, staying in Africa for the following six years. The experience he obtained during this period would later significantly affect his writing profession. An author of massive talent. He kept on composing till the end, leaving behind a legacy of various books, brief tales, and non-fictions for us to read. An agriculturist, he served on a few government commissions concerning horticulture throughout the British Empire, being selected a Knight Bachelor and Knight Commander for his commitment to this field. H. Rider Haggard was born on 22 June, 1856 in Braden ham, situated in the English area of Norfolk. His father, Sir William Meybohm Rider Haggard, was a lawyer, while his mother, Ella Dove ton Haggard, was an author herself. The couple had ten children, out of which Henry was conceived as the eighth. Senior to him was one sister and six brothers called Ella Dove ton, William Henry Dove ton, Bastet Michael Dove ton, Alfred Huber, John George, Andrew Charles Parker, and Arthur. His more youthful kin was Elizabeth Cecelia Western; Eleanora Mary D'Auethare and Edward Arthur Haggard. Due to his dull appearance and absence of focus, his father didn't send him to any tuition-based schools. Taking everything into consideration, he started his schooling with Reverend H. J. Graham at Garsington Rectory in Oxfordshire. Afterward, he moved to Ipswich Grammar School, from where he graduated in 1873. In 1884, Haggard had a five-shilling stake with his brother, asserting that he could compose a preferred novel over Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Treasure Island'. He composed it in the weeks between January and 21st April, 1885. Right away, he set out on writing 'Lord Solomon's Mines' which got distributed in 1885 and immediately turned into a top-of-the-line novel. Even though he had kept on working in legal matters irregularly, he surrendered it and started to focus on writing, serializing another well-known work, 'She: A History of Adventure' in 'The Graphic' magazine between October 1886 and January 1887. At last, the work was distributed as a novel in 1887. In 1887, he distributed another significant work, 'Allan Quatermain' which was a spin-off of 'Lord Solomon's Mines'. Among his other famous works of that time were 'Cleopatra' (1889), 'Nothing the Lily' (1892), and so on. In 1891, he headed out to Mexico to rework his book, 'Montezuma's Daughter' (1893). While continuing with his journey, he received the news that his only child died which dishear...

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If Homer had written a nineteenth-century romance novel, this would have been it. Whatever happened to Odysseus after his disastrous return home to Ithaca? Adventure author H. Rider Haggard, most famous for writing King Solomon's Mines, and learned Hellenist Andrew Lang collaborate to make this epic romance as allegorical and folkloric as any of Grimm's fairy tales. They effortlessly capture the essence of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Grieving for his wife, Odysseus is visited in dreams by his former love, Helen of Troy, who shows him how to equip himself with the Bow of Erytus and his intact armor. Helen beckons Odysseus to search for her in Egypt, where he encounters heroic figures, free from the restrictions of time and death. Neither murderous political games at the court of the Pharaoh, nor epic battles, nor even the Pharaoh's wife's temptations can make him stray from his course. In this, his last journey, Odysseus completes his lifelong search for Beauty itself, in the person of the World's Desire, Helen of Troy. First published in 1890, this book has received critical acclaim throughout its century-long life.