This paperback collection brings together the shorter stories about Quatermain, the grizzled old hunter with his ‘shrivelled yellow face and large dark eyes, that were as keen as any hawk’s, and yet as soft as a buck’s’. Much the longest is Allan’s Wife, which will already be familiar to many Haggard enthusiasts. The others are short stories published over many years. They are of uneven quality but there are some wonderfully vivid moments, many centred on hunting or battle. Hunter Quatermain and his trackers drive a herd of elephant into a swamp where they get bogged down and are easily shot during the night.

The pan presented a curious sight when the sun rose. Owing to the support given by the soil, few of the dead elephants had fallen: there they stood as though they were asleep.
The canny old hunter had many useful tips when ‘the port wine had made him more communicative’. Some are culinary: ‘I know of no greater luxury than giraffe marrow-bones, unless it be elephant’s heart.’ Others hint at an attitude common in his generation: ‘I was in a very bad temper ... and soothed myself by taking a rifle and going to kill something.’ Above all, Haggard was a master of scenes of violent action. No one is better at describing a battle, whether it be the fight with the baboons in Allan’s Wife or the last stand of the Grays in King Solomon’s Mines, or, most memorable of all, how Umslopogaas held the stair in Allan Quatermain.

Peter Haining has performed a useful service in bringing some of these lesser known stories together. They bear witness to Haggard’s ever fertile imagination and vivid descriptive powers, and for many of us they will bring back happy memories of a bloodthirsty childhood.

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