Sir Henry Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines was one of the inspirational texts of the British Empire in the late Victorian era, the publication of which inaugurated the cult of the bestseller and launched the genre of adventure-imperialism. Haggard followed this with She (1887) and Allan Quatermain (1887). Stephen Coan is an assistant editor of the Natal Witness.

• From youth to age; this land of troubles; a sad story in truth; chief from old! Father!; I felt like one returned from the dead; is it a white man's land?; 400 miles through Zululand; a Zulu of high blood; running along the coast; it is done.

'Anyone who is interested in South African history or the British Empire at its zenith will be intrigued by Haggard's descriptions of the country and its leaders shortly after the end of the Boer War. [A...] Haggard's diary is a collection of fading sepia images of another time and another world, full of interesting notes and appendices.' -F.W. de Klerk, The Times, August 2001

Sir Henry Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines was one of the inspirational texts of the British Empire in the late Victorian era, the publication of which inaugurated the cult of the bestseller and launched the genre of adventure-imperialism. Haggard followed this with She (1887) and Allan Quatermain (1887). Stephen Coan is an assistant editor of the Natal Witness.

• From youth to age; this land of troubles; a sad story in truth; chief from old! Father!; I felt like one returned from the dead; is it a white man's land?; 400 miles through Zululand; a Zulu of high blood; running along the coast; it is done.

'Anyone who is interested in South African history or the British Empire at its zenith will be intrigued by Haggard's descriptions of the country and its leaders shortly after the end of the Boer War. [A...] Haggard's diary is a collection of fading sepia images of another time and another world, full of interesting notes and appendices.' -F.W. de Klerk, The Times, August 2001

Sir Henry Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines was one of the inspirational texts of the British Empire in the late Victorian era, the publication of which inaugurated the cult of the bestseller and launched the genre of adventure-imperialism. Haggard followed this with She (1887) and Allan Quatermain (1887). Stephen Coan is an assistant editor of the Natal Witness.

• From youth to age; this land of troubles; a sad story in truth; chief from old! Father!; I felt like one returned from the dead; is it a white man's land?; 400 miles through Zululand; a Zulu of high blood; running along the coast; it is done.

'Anyone who is interested in South African history or the British Empire at its zenith will be intrigued by Haggard's descriptions of the country and its leaders shortly after the end of the Boer War. [A...] Haggard's diary is a collection of fading sepia images of another time and another world, full of interesting notes and appendices.' -F.W. de Klerk, The Times, August 2001