The Ancient Allan

About this book

Allan Quatermain's adventures carry him towards the possibility that he has lived before. Under the influence of an ancient Egyptian story, familiar identities give way to a world of dynastic ambition and long-remembered love.

H. Rider Haggard draws on reincarnation to connect his ageing adventurer with a drama from the distant past. The novel carries his taste for ruins, dangerous loyalties and vanished kingdoms into a more openly mystical register. The question of memory gives its adventure a lingering unease: what might survive of a life when everything else has disappeared?