Diary of an African Journey: The Return of Rider Haggard

In 1914 Sir Henry Rider Haggard returned to South Africa, the country that had fired his imagination, for the first time since 1881. He had left, in his mid-twenties, an unknown; he returned in late middle age a household name thanks to the popularity of his adventure stories such as King Solomon's Mines and She.
Touring the country as a member of the Dominions Royal Commission Haggard found it hard to recognise the South Africa of his youth - the discovery of gold, the destruction of the Zulu kingdom, the Anglo-Boer War, had all left their mark; and, from a clutch of separate states, South Africa had become a single political entity under the banner of Union.
While the tour often rekindled Haggard's romantic notions of Africa - notably during his visit to Rhodesia and the Zimbabwe ruins and a trip through Zululand - Haggard had changed too. He no longer regarded himself as a novelist but as a "man of affairs", a public servant. Neither was he the die-hard imperialist of his youth. Witness his views on South Africa's future, his thoughts on the plight of the Zulu, and, perhaps most startlingly, his interview with John Dube, first president of the African National Congress.
Published for the first time Diary of an African Journey: The Return of Rider Haggard presents a fresh picture of Haggard, often at variance with both popular and academic perceptions of his life and work.