Description

“MAY I BE HUNG IF I EVER HEARD A YARN LIKE THAT”:
 EXCEPTIONAL AND FINE FIRST EDITION, VERY RARE FIRST ISSUE,
OF KING SOLOMON’S MINES, 1885

HAGGARD, Henry Rider. King Solomon’s Mines. London: Cassell, 1885. Octavo, original pictorial red cloth.

First edition, very rare first issue, of Haggard’s celebrated first work to introduce his “archetypal Victorian hero,” Allan Quatermain, in a novel that inspired Oscar-winning films and a generation of adventure tales, from the library of noted bibliophile Mark Beaufoy, with his family bookplate. An exceptionally fresh and beautiful copy with the extremely rare first issue with the August (rather than October) advertisements at rear.

Sir Henry Haggard’s “best work is contained in the Quartermain sequence, which appeared over a 40-year span,” a series in which “the central text remains the first”—King Solomon’s Mines (Clute & Grant, 444-5). In “this robust adventure story? Allan Quartermain is the archetypal Victorian hero,” a figure whose fictional life and “Haggard’s were inextricably linked” (Barron 3-55). Inspired by his own experiences in Africa, Haggard wrote the novel “in six weeks after placing a bet with his brother? The novel’s success was attributed to Haggard’s imaginative style of writing, a ready-made audience that eagerly awaited adventure stories, and an irresistible fascination that British readers held for the outside world” (Tibbetts & Welsh, 214). King Solomon’s Mines has inspired several classic films, including the 1937 film with Paul Robeson and the 1950 Oscar-winning film with Deborah Kerr and Stewart Granger. First issue, with “Bamamgwato” (p. 10, li. 14), “to let twins to live” (p. 122, li. 27), “wrod” (p. 307, li. 29); rear advertisement leaf dated “5G.8.85.” With folding chromolith frontispiece, in-text map. English Library, 27. See Sadleir 1089; Wolff 2863. Signed by respected bibliophile Mark Beaufoy on the half title. With bookplate of “The Beaufoy Library.” Two small inkstamps, one to half title.

Interior fresh with light scattered foxing, small tape repair to verso of frontispiece; cloth and gilt exceptionally bright and fresh. A beautiful nearly fine copy, virtually never found in this condition.