| English
novelist, colonial administrator, and agriculturist, born in Norfolk. At
the age of 19 he went to South Africa and later served in the Transvaal
as a master of the high court. Returning to England in 1881, Haggard devoted
most of his time to agriculture, on his estate in Norfolk, and to writing
novels. His King Solomon's Mines (1885) was an immediate success; its story,
suggested by the ruins at Zimbabwe, dealt with the adventures of an English
explorer among remote tribes. The characters who appeared in the book were
featured in several others, including She (1887), Allan Quatermain (1887),
and Ayesha, or the Return of She (1905). In addition to writing more than
40 novels, Haggard was an adviser to the British government on agriculture.
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