Diary of an African Journey. The Return of Rider Haggard

228 x 150 mm; laminated pictorial wrappers; pp. xiv + 345, incl. index; maps; illustrations in text. Fine condition. "In 1914 Sir Henry Rider Haggard, the author of King Solomon's Mines, Allan Quatermain and She, returned to South Africa, the country that had fired his imagination, for the first time since 1881. Touring as a member of the Dominions Royal Commission, Haggard found it hard to recognise the Africa of his youth - the discovery of gold, the destruction of the Zulu kingdom, the Anglo-Boer War, had all left their mark. From a clutch of separate states, South Africa had become a single political entity under the banner of Union. While the tour often rekindled Haggard's romantic notions of Africa - notably during his visit to the Great Zimbabwe ruins in Rhodesia and on a trip through Zululand - his resulting diary also reflects a changed Haggard: no longer the novelist but a man of affairs and a public servant. Neither was he the diehard imperialist of his youth, but instead someone prepared to take note of nascent black politics and look prophetically into South Africa's future. Witness his views on race and politics; his thoughts on the plight of the Zulu; and, perhaps most startlingly, his interview with John Dube, first president of the African National Congress. Published for the first time, Diary of an African Journey presents a fresh picture of Haggard, often at variance with both popular and academic perceptions of his life and work. It also marks an advance in biographical work on Haggard as the Introduction and Notes contain much hitherto unpublished material relating to his early life in South Africa.".…