She: A History of Adventure

Credits and rights

Original writer

H. Rider Haggard

Publisher of this edition

BoingyBooks Classics

Original publisher

Project Gutenberg

Adaptation credits

John Shoufler / BoingyBooks Classics — digital edition

Original source / edition

She: A History of Adventure (1887)

License

Public Domain

License link

https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

Rights and adaptation notice

This work is in the public domain. John Shoufler published this digital edition through BoingyBooks Classics. The original work remains public domain and may be copied, adapted, and shared.

She: A History of Adventure by H. Rider Haggard (1887)

Two Englishmen journey to the heart of Africa and discover a lost kingdom ruled by Ayesha, "She-who-must-be-obeyed" — a 2,000-year-old white queen of supernatural beauty and terrifying power who has been waiting for her reincarnated lover.

Historical Significance:
H. Rider Haggard wrote She in just six weeks in 1886, calling it "a strange story." Published in 1887, it became one of the bestselling novels of all time, with over 83 million copies sold. Haggard was a colonial administrator in South Africa, and the novel reflects Victorian fascination with — and anxiety about — the "Dark Continent." Ayesha is one of fiction's most compelling and problematic characters: powerful, brilliant, and terrifying, yet also a product of colonial fantasy.

Freud and Jung both analyzed the novel. It influenced C.S. Lewis's Narnia and Tolkien's Galadriel. The phrase "She who must be obeyed" entered common usage (famously used in Rumpole of the Bailey).

This public domain classic was originally published in 1887. Free to read and share.