Smith and the Pharaohs and other Tales

The Mahatma and the Hare is the story of the selfcalled mahatma - a spiritual man who is able, when asleep, to view "The Great White Road" on which the souls of those recently departed enter heaven - encounters the hare of the title after that animal's death. Barbara Who Came Back is the story of Septimus Walrond, who was returning from a professional visit to a distant cottage of his remote and straggling parish upon the coast of East Anglia. His errand had been sad, to baptise the dying infant...

Sir Henry Rider Haggard was an English writer of adventure novels set mostly in Africa, and a founder of the Lost World literary genre. The main hero of The Yellow God is Alan Vernon, a young retired army major, who, after undergoing financial ruin, decides to travel to Africa to make his fortune, in hopes of eventually winning the hand of beautiful Barbara Champers-Haswell. Vernon has heard of a mysterious kingdom ruled by the priestess and he plans to help himself to the gold found there.

The story is set in the Ptolemaic era of ancient Egyptian history and revolves around the survival of a dynasty bloodline protected by the Priesthood of Isis. The main character Harmachis is charged by the Priesthood to overthrow the supposed impostor Cleopatra, drive out the Romans, and restore Egypt to its golden era. As is the case with the majority of Haggard's works, the story draws heavily upon adventure and exotic concepts. The story, told from the point of view of the Egyptian priest...

The People of the Mist is a classic lost race fantasy novel. It is the tale of a British adventurer seeking wealth in the wilds of Africa, finding romance, and discovering a lost race and its monstrous god. In the novel Penniless Leonard Outram attempts to redress the undeserved loss of his family estates and fiancee by seeking his fortune in Africa. In the course of his adventures he and his Zulu companion Otter save a young Portuguese woman, Juanna Rodd, together with her nursemaid Soa, from...

The Witch's Head is the second novel by H Rider Haggard, which he wrote just prior to King Solomon's Mines. Zulu magic comes to the British Fenlands, as the severed head of a sorcerer casts a spell from beyond the grave. The story sweeps from England to the South African setting Haggard knew well from his years with Britain's colonial service.

The Virgin of the Sun is a novel by H. Rider Haggard set in South America. A tale that deals with the marvellous Incas of Peru; with the legend also that, long before the Spanish Conquerors entered on their mission of robbery and ruin, there in that undiscovered land lived and died a White God risen from the sea.