Wikipedia:Today's featured list/December 3, 2018
Works by the English writer H. Rider Haggard consist largely of adventure fiction, but also of non-fiction. The eighth child of a Norfolk barrister and squire, through family connections he gained employment with Sir Henry Bulwer during the latter's service as lieutenant-governor of Natal, South Africa. Rider Haggard travelled to southern Africa in 1875 and remained in the country for six years, during which time he served as Master of the High Court of the Transvaal and an adjutant of the Pretoria Horse. Rider Haggard's time in Africa proved inspirational for him. He returned to Britain in 1881 and was called to the bar; while studying he wrote his first book, Cetywayo and His White Neighbours, a critical examination of Britain's policies in South Africa. In 1885 he wrote one of his most popular novels, King Solomon's Mines—detailing the life of the adventurer Allan Quatermain—which was followed by She: A History of Adventure (1886), which introduced the female character Ayesha; both characters became the focus of series of books. According to the author Morton N. Cohen, writing for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, much of Rider Haggard's reputation rests on these two works. (Full list...)