Quatermain The Complete Adventures 2 Allan’s Wife, Maiwa’s Revenge and Marie

This volume bundles three of H. Rider Haggard’s Allan Quatermain novels into one collection. Allan’s Wife was published in 1889 and tells the story of Quatermain’s young marriage, his elopement with Stella Carson into the African veldt, and the tragedy that follows. It is one of the more emotional Quatermain books, and the section featuring the white-haired wild woman Hendrika is among Haggard’s strangest set pieces. Maiwa’s Revenge appeared in 1888 as a short novel about a Zulu princess named Maiwa who recruits Quatermain to lead a war of vengeance against a brutal chief. It is short, brisk, and unusually focused on a female protagonist driving the action.

Marie was published in 1912 and is set the earliest in Quatermain’s life of any book in the canon. It covers his first marriage, to the Boer girl Marie Marais, against the backdrop of the Boer Great Trek of the 1830s, including a memorable account of the massacre at Weenen. Reading the three together gives a near-complete picture of Quatermain’s romantic life and his earliest decades on the African frontier. A useful omnibus for anyone working through the series in order.