Allan Quatermain

Sean Connery as Allan Quatermain in the 2003 film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Allan Quatermain is a fictional character, the protagonist of H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines and its various sequels and prequels. Allan Quatermain was also the title of an 1887 book in this sequence.

History

Quatermain is an English-born professional big game hunter and occasional trader in southern Africa. While not precisely anti-colonial in his outlook, he favours native Africans having a say in how their affairs are run, a rather progressive outlook for a Victorian. Quatermain is a quintessential outdoorsman who finds English cities and climate unbearable, and thus prefers to spend most of his life in Africa, where he grew up under the care of his widower father, a Christian missionary. In the earliest-written novels native Africans refer to Quatermain as Macumazahn, meaning "Watcher-by-Night," a reference to his nocturnal habits and keen instincts. In later-written novels Macumazahn is said to be a short form of Macumazana, meaning "One who stands out." Quatermain is frequently accompanied by his native servant, the Hottentot Hans, a wise and caring family retainer from his youth whose sarcastic comments offer a sharp critique of European conventions. In his final adventures Quatermain is joined by two British companions, Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good of the Royal Navy, and by his African friend Umslopogaas.

Series

Although some of Haggard's Quatermain novels stand alone, there are two important series. In Marie, Child of Storm and Finished Quatermain becomes ensnarled in the vengeance of Zikali, the dwarf wizard known as "The-thing-that-should-never-have-been-born" and "Opener-of-Roads." Zikali plots and finally achieves the overthrow of the Zulu royal House of Senzangakona, founded by Shaka and ending under Cetewayo (Haggard's questionable spelling of Zulu names is used here). These novels are prequels to the foundation series, King Solomon's Mines and Allan Quatermain, which describe Quatermain's discovery of vast wealth, his discontent with a life of ease, and his fatal return to Africa following the death of his son Harry.

Family

About Quatermain's family, little is written. He lives at Durban, in Natal, South Africa. He marries twice, but is quickly widowed both times. The printing of some of the memoirs in the series is entrusted to Quatermain's son, Harry, whose own death is heavily mourned in the opening of the novel Allan Quatermain. Harry Quatermain is a medical student who dies of smallpox while working in a hospital. Haggard did not write the Quatermain novels in chronological order and some details conflict. Quatermain's birth, age at the time of his marriages, and age at the time of his death cannot be reconciled to the apparent date of Harry's birth and age at death.

According to the film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Quatermain's son (unnamed) went with him on his last mission for England and was somehow killed and died "in my arms". This causes Quatermain to fall into retirement and feel extremely bitter towards England. It should be noted that the DVD of the film is inaccurately captioned; in the scene where Quatermain explains the circumstances which led to his son's death, he remarks, "I even took my son along." The closed captioning on the scene, however, reads as "I even took my son-in-law."

Appearance

Quatermain is small, wiry, and unattractive, with a beard and short hair that sticks up like bristles on a brush. His one skill and source of pride is his marksmanship, where he has no equal. Quatermain is aware that by exercising this skill as a professional hunter he has helped to destroy his only love, the wild free places of Africa. In old age he hunts without pleasure, having no other means of making a living.

Use of Quatermain in other works

The Allan Quatermain character has been expanded greatly by modern writers who have used Haggard's fictional character to fulfill their own fantasies. They show little knowledge of Haggard's original. For example, the possibility of other children has been speculated—for instance, the family trees of the "Wold Newton family" (see below) indicate that Quatermain had a daughter who married a relation of Sherlock Holmes—but canonically, Harry is an only child. After his death, his father laments that he is an old man "without a chick or child to comfort me."

In League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume II, he, along with Mina Murray, discovers and bathes in the pool known as the "Fire of Life", almost immediately after which his death and almost instant replacement by a long lost son, Allan Quatermain, Jr., is reported by Miss Murray—though the text implies that this is much more likely Allan himself faking his own demise and taking on a false identity in order to disguise his sudden mystical change in age, rather than an actual son.

The use of the character Allan Quatermain by other authors is possible due to Haggard's works passing into the public domain, much like Sherlock Holmes. Quatermain was placed by science fiction writer Philip José Farmer as a member of the "Wold Newton family". The character was also used by the graphic novelists Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill in their series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which was adapted to film in 2003. In the graphic novel, Quatermain has a relationship with Mina Harker (of Dracula fame), while in the movie he is the leader of the League, becoming almost a father figure to American agent Tom Sawyer, to whom he teaches his method of shooting before his death.

The character of Allan Quatermain has been portrayed in film and television by Richard Chamberlain, John Colicos, Sean Connery, Cedric Hardwicke, and Patrick Swayze. Stewart Granger also played Quatermain in the 1950 Hollywood film adaptation of King Solomon's Mines, which was directed by Compton Bennett. None of the above works portray Haggard's Quatermain accurately in age, appearance, or character. Some even give his name erroneously as "Quartermain."

In 2005, the first true full literary pastiche of Allan Quatermain (as opposed to both graphic novels and various insertions into alternate universes) was published by Wildside Press. It is The Great Detective at the Crucible of Life; Or, The Adventure of the Rose of Fire by Thos. Kent Miller and adds chapters to both Quatermain and Sherlock Holmes . It is constructed as a Quatermain memoir and African adventure, as Haggard told all the Quatermain tales. Miller is also the author of Sherlock Holmes on the Roof of the World; Or, The Adventure of the Wayfaring God, a pastiche of H. Rider Haggard's She.

Influences

The real-life adventures of Frederick Courtney Selous, the famous British big game hunter and explorer of Colonial Africa, inspired Haggard to create the fictional Allan Quatermain character. Haggard was also heavily influenced by other larger-than-life adventurers he later met in Africa, most notably the American Scout Frederick Russell Burnham, by South Africa's vast mineral wealth, and by the ruins of ancient lost civilizations being uncovered in Africa, such as Great Zimbabwe. The beliefs and views of the fictional Quatermain are, however, those of Haggard himself. These include conventional Victorian assumptions concerning the superiority of the white race; an admiration for so-called "warrior races," such as the amaZulu; a disdain for natives currupted by white influences; and a general contempt for Afrikaners (Boers). But in other ways Haggard's views were "advanced" for his times. Quatermain frequently encounters natives who are more brave and wise than Europeans, and women (black and white) who are smarter and emotionally stronger than men. Through the Quatermain novels and his other works, Haggard also expresses his own mysticism and interest in non-Christian concepts, particularly karma and reincarnation.^[1][2]

Books

The books written by H. Rider Haggard relating to Allan Quatermain are:

1. King Solomon's Mines (1885)
2. Allan Quatermain (1887)
3. Allan's Wife (1887)
4. (1888)
5. Marie (1912)
6. Child of Storm (1913)
7. The Holy Flower (1915)
8. Finished (1917)
9. The Ivory Child (1916)
10. The Ancient Allan (1920)
11. She and Allan (1920)
12. (1924)
13. The Treasure of the Lake (1926)
14. Allan and the Ice-gods (1927)
15. Hunter Quatermain's Story: The Uncollected Adventures of Allan Quatermain

References

• Allan Quatermain

Footnotes

External links

• King Solomon's Mines, available at Project Gutenberg.
• Allan Quatermain, available at Project Gutenberg.
• Allan's Wife, available at Project Gutenberg.
• Maiwa's Revenge, available at Project Gutenberg.
• Marie, available at Project Gutenberg.
• Child of Storm, available at Project Gutenberg.
• The Holy Flower, available at Project Gutenberg.
• Finished, available at Project Gutenberg.
• The Ivory Child, available at Project Gutenberg.
• The Ancient Allan, available at Project Gutenberg.
• She and Allan, available at Project Gutenberg.
• Allan Quatermain: The First Action Hero

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