King Solomon's Mines

King Solomon's Mines (1885) is a popular novel by the English Victorian adventure writer and fabulist Sir H. Rider Haggard. It tells of an expedition through an unexplored region of Africa by a group of adventurers led by Allan Quatermain, searching for the missing brother of one of the party. It is one of the first English adventure novels set in Africa and is considered to be the genesis of the lost world literary genre. Haggard dedicated this book to his childhood idol Humphry Davy.

Background
The book was first published in September 1885 amid considerable fanfare, with billboards and posters around London announcing, "The Most Amazing Book Ever Written". It became an immediate best seller. By the late 19th century, explorers were uncovering ancient civilizations and their remains around the world, such as Egypt's Valley of the Kings and the empire of Assyria. Inner Africa remained largely unexplored and King Solomon's Mines, one of the first novels of African adventure published in English, captured the public's imagination.

The "King Solomon" of the book's title is the legendary Biblical king renowned both for his wisdom and for his wealth. A number of sites have been suggested as the location of his mines, including the workings at the Timna valley near Eilat. Research published in September 2013 has shown that this site was in use during the 10th century BC as a copper mine possibly by the Edomites, who, the Bible reports, were rivals of and frequently at war with King Solomon.

The Bible does refer to King Solomon having sent out, in partnership with his Phoenician allies, trading expeditions along the Red Sea, which brought exotic wares and animals from Africa to Jerusalem. Muslim traders in Sofala told Portuguese travelers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that the region's gold mines belonged to King Solomon and that he built the now-ruined Great Zimbabwe.

Haggard knew Africa well, having travelled deep within the continent during the Anglo-Zulu War and the First Boer War, where he had been impressed by South Africa's vast mineral wealth and by the ruins of ancient lost cities, such as Great Zimbabwe, being uncovered. His original Allan Quatermain character was based in large part on Frederick Selous, the British white hunter and explorer of Africa.[8][9] Selous's real-life experiences provided Haggard with the background and inspiration for this and many later stories.

Haggard also owed a considerable debt to Joseph Thomson, the Scottish explorer whose book Through Masai Land was published in 1885. Thomson claimed he had terrified warriors in Kenya by taking out his false teeth and claiming to be a magician, just as Captain Good does in King Solomon's Mines. Contemporary James Runciman wrote an article entitled King Plagiarism and His Court, interpreted as accusing Haggard of plagiarism for this. Thomson was so outraged at Haggard's alleged plagiarism that he published a novel of his own, Ulu: an African Romance, which, however, failed to sell.

Plot summary
"To those who enter the hall of dead"; Walter Paget
Allan Quatermain, an adventurer and white hunter based in the African city of Durban, is approached by aristocrat Sir Henry Curtis and his friend Captain Good, seeking his help finding Sir Henry's brother, who was last seen travelling north into the unexplored interior on a quest for the fabled King Solomon's Mines. Quatermain has a map purporting to lead to the mines but had never taken it seriously. He agrees to lead an expedition in return for a share of the treasure, or a stipend for his son if he is killed along the way. He has little hope they will return alive, but reasons that he has already outlived most people in his profession, so dying in this manner at least ensures his son will be provided for. They also take along a native, Umbopa, who seems more regal and well-spoken than most porters of his class, but who is anxious to join the party.

Radio
Kenneth Colley starred as Allan Quatermain in a 1990 BBC Radio 4 adaptation.
A two-part BBC Radio 4 adaptation was broadcast in April 2017 starring Tim McInnerny as Allan Quatermain.