Allan Quatermain

“first-rate stories of adventure”

The Spectator, 29 December 1888

• Complete text of the 1887 first edition, checked against the page images
• Twenty plates newly drawn after C. H. M. Kerr’s illustrations of 1887
• Publisher’s note, author profile and afterword
• Every departure from the first edition listed at the end of the book

He has crossed the desert, entered the legendary mines of King Solomon and returned from a kingdom beyond the known world with riches sufficient for a lifetime. Yet Allan Quatermain, the veteran hunter whose name has become a legend upon the African frontier, has discovered that all the treasures of the earth are powerless before the loss of the one life dearest to him.

Bereaved of his only son, and unable to find consolation in the peace which his earlier adventures have purchased, Quatermain turns once more towards the immense and mysterious interior of Africa. Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good accompany their old companion upon a journey more perilous than the first; beside them marches Umslopogaas, the formidable Zulu warrior, scarred by a lifetime of battle and bearing the terrible axe Inkosi-kaas, whose name and deeds seem already to belong to an age of heroes.

Beyond hostile country, dark waters and mountains guarding the last frontiers of exploration, the travellers discover the magnificent and isolated civilisation of the Zu-Vendi, where ancient temples rise above a mighty city, rival queens contend for sovereignty, and the fate of a kingdom is to be decided amid the splendour and devastation of war.

Here, beneath a foreign sky, friendship will be tried to its utmost, courage will be measured against overwhelming odds, and men who have survived the impossible must discover what no earthly victory can secure.

First published in 1887, Allan Quatermain is one of the great heroic romances of Victorian literature: a magnificent succession of exploration, kingship, battle and devotion, sustained to its close with extraordinary dignity and emotional power.

This AETERNUS edition follows the first Longmans edition of 1887, with twenty plates newly drawn after the original illustrations by C. H. M. Kerr.

AMBER SERIES · AETERNUS

This AETERNUS edition follows the first Longmans edition of 1887, with twenty plates newly drawn after the original illustrations by C. H. M. Kerr.