Granddaddy Of All Thriller Novels: King Solomon’s Mines Kindle Edition:
In his Post Scriptum in 1907 the author, H. Rider Haggard, calls the novel a “romance” which in Victorian terms meant an adventure or at least something out of ordinary everyday life. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s words romance in those days meant “where moonlight and imagination meet”. And surely King Solomon’s Mines is that place. The dark, mysterious atmosphere of Africa has never been more chillingly depicted. Never has there been a more frightful villain than the witch Gagool. She is so totally lacking in scruples that when I first read the book I kept on making out her awful face in the fanciful wallpaper designs in my bathroom, and I was scared to go in there in the dark. Never has there been a more suspenseful situation in all of fiction than whether the characters will make it to the mines to begin with and once they get there whether they will escape. All these things make this story of Allan Quatermain the granddaddy of the later day thriller novel. Read it again and again and discover new riches each time.
In his Post Scriptum in 1907 the author, H. Rider Haggard, calls the novel a “romance” which in Victorian terms meant an adventure or at least something out of ordinary everyday life. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s words romance in those days meant “where moonlight and imagination meet”. And surely King Solomon’s Mines is that place. The dark, mysterious atmosphere of Africa has never been more chillingly depicted. Never has there been a more frightful villain than the witch Gagool. She is so totally lacking in scruples that when I first read the book I kept on making out her awful face in the fanciful wallpaper designs in my bathroom, and I was scared to go in there in the dark. Never has there been a more suspenseful situation in all of fiction than whether the characters will make it to the mines to begin with and once they get there whether they will escape. All these things make this story of Allan Quatermain the granddaddy of the later day thriller novel. Read it again and again and discover new riches each time.