Ayesha, the Return of She is a gothic-fantasy novel by the English Victorian author H. Rider Haggard, published in 1905 as a sequel to his 1887 novel She. Chronologically, it is the final novel of the Ayesha and Allan Quatermain series. It was serialised in issues 120 (December 1904) to 130 (October 1905) of the Windsor Magazine, where it was illustrated by Maurice Greiffenhagen.
Along with the other three novels in the series, Ayesha, the Return of She was adapted into the 1935 film She.
Synopsis
In the prologue the book's anonymous "Editor" receives a parcel. Opening it, he finds a letter from Horace Holly, with an enclosed manuscript containing a second memoir about She. There is also a second letter, from Holly's doctor, to whom Holly has entrusted his letter and manuscript, along with a wooden box, which contains an ancient sistrum. The doctor recounts how, when attending Holly in his last hours, he arrived at the house to find that Holly had risen from his deathbed and made his way to a local ring of ancient standing stones. Following him, the doctor glimpsed a manifestation that appears to Holly, but as the vision vanished, Holly had let out a happy cry and died.
The narrative of Holly's manuscript begins nearly twenty years after his first adventure in Africa. Holly and his ward Leo Vincey are convinced that Ayesha did not die. Following their dreams, they wander for years through Asia, eventually coming to "Thibet" (as it is spelled in the book). Taking refuge over winter in a remote lamasery, they meet the old Abbot Kou-En, who claims to recall a past-life encounter with a witch queen from the time of Alexander the Great. The Abbot tries to dissuade them from going on and warns them that, however beautiful, nothing is immortal. He believes the Queen is holding on to the distractions of life, which will lead them away from peace of mind.
Despite the Abbot's warning, Leo is compelled to press on and Holly will not abandon his adopted son. When spring breaks, they travel out into the uncharted region beyond the monastery; after a perilous journey and many narrow escapes, they arrive in the city of Kaloon, which is ruled by the evil Khan Rassen and his imperious wife, the Khania Atene, who claim to be descendants of Alexander the Great's ancient Hellenist generals. The people of Kaloon live under an uneasy truce with the people who serve the Hesea, the Priestess of Hes, who dwells on the Mountain, a huge volcano that dominates the region, at the summit of which is a massive natural rock formation in the shape of an ankh. Atene declares her love for Leo, but the jealous and dissolute Rassen (who has been driven mad by the sorcery of Atene and her uncle, the wizard Simbri) wants to kill them.
Atene's rival, the mysterious Hesea, orders Atene to send Leo and Holly to her, or risk breaking their peace treaty. Atene vows to kill Leo, rather than let him go, but with the help of Rassen, they escape the city. They soon realise that Rassen has betrayed them and is hunting them with his monstrous Death-Hounds. They make a dash to the foot of the mountain, where they are caught by Rassen, but after a desperate struggle they manage to kill the Khan and his hounds.
First edition illustration of Ayesha
As Leo and Holly ascend the Mountain they are intercepted by the people of Hes, who are then joined by a ghost-like Messenger, who leads them up the mountain. After they arrive at the vast temple-palace complex near the summit, they are taken into the presence of the veiled Hesea, who admits that she is the Messenger who guided them up the Mountain.
In accordance with ancient custom, Atene comes to the mountain temple for the funeral of Rassen. The Hesea now declares that she is indeed the reincarnation of Ayesha, and that Atene is the reincarnation of her ancient rival, Amenartas. To the horror of Leo and Holly, Ayesha reveals she has been reborn into the body of a wizened old crone. Atene challenges Ayesha, but Leo declares his love for Ayesha, regardless of the form in which she appears. With his choice, the mysterious life-force within the volcano reaches out and engulfs her – when it clears, her former beauty and majesty has been restored.
Ayesha vows that if Leo still loves her, they will return to her ancient home in Africa. There they will both bathe in the Flame of Life, become immortal, and rule the world together. However she refuses Leo's entreaties to marry him right away, saying that they must wait for the change of seasons and the weather to clear, before they can travel.
While waiting out the winter, Ayesha writes her memories (which are the basis for the fourth book in the series, Wisdom's Daughter). Ayesha shows Holly and Leo how she commands mortals, spirits, and demons. She questions Holly at length about the modern world and expounds to him her plan that, once united with Leo, they will rule the world, conquering the existing Empires by flooding the world's gold supply with her alchemy. Appalled, Holly fears that Ayesha may succeed.
Leo presses Ayesha to marry him without delay, but she is unwilling, insisting they must wait. Bored with his confinement, Leo goes hunting in the mountains but Ayesha, fearful for his safety, uses her psychic powers to watch him and sees that he and his men have been attacked by a leopard, and that Leo has been injured. When the party returns, the furious Ayesha sentences Leo's retainers to death, but Leo is horrified by her cruelty and prevails on her to spare them.
Soon after, Atene sends Ayesha an ultimatum, challenging her to battle. Ayesha marshalls her forces and marches out, but while they are camped at the foot of the mountain, Atene uses her magic to appear in the guise of Ayesha, luring Holly and Leo away from Ayesha's protection, and Leo is captured.
Enraged, Ayesha declares that she will destroy Atene and rescue Leo. Although greatly outnumbered, she leads her men into battle, and when the two armies meet Ayesha reveals her power over the elements, summoning up a terrible lightning storm. In the ensuing holocaust, Ayesha obliterates Atene's army and lays waste to Kaloon, while her own army reaches the city without the loss of a single man.
When Ayesha and Holly burst into the room where Leo is confined, they discover that Atene has realised her utter defeat and taken poison. They see the wizard Simbri standing poised to kill Leo, but Ayesha paralyses him with her power, and Leo is released unharmed. Leo demands that Ayesha must give herself to him immediately, and she yields to his wish. They kiss, but Ayesha's power proves too great for his mortal body, and he dies in her arms. Ayesha then charges the wizard Simbri to go ahead into the realm of Death and carry a message to the departed spirits, and with these words Simbri falls dead where he stands. The distraught Ayesha takes Leo's body to the temple on the peak, where the flames rise up from the crater and consume their bodies. Holly is led down from the mountain and finds his way back to the lamasery.
Literary history
Haggard dedicated the novel to his friend Andrew Lang.[2] Eighteen years pass between books, and in the characters' lives.[3]
It is set in Central Asia – partly in Tibet – reincarnation being a familiar tenet of Tibetan Buddhism; however, the back story is set in the ancient Mediterranean.
In her biography of her father Haggard's daughter Lilias Rider Haggard explains the origins of the names. "She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed" was a doll in the author's nursery. "Ayesha" was borrowed from Arabic, being the name of one of Mohammed's wives.[4]
In this book Haggard explains the origins of the "rolling Pillar of Life",[5] which he associates to effects of radiation:
Recent discoveries would appear to suggest that this mysterious "Fire of Life", which, whatever else it may have been, was evidently a force and no true fire, since it did not burn, owed its origin to the emanations from radium, or some kindred substance. Although in the year 1885, Mr. Holly would have known nothing of the properties of these marvellous rays or emanations, doubtless Ayesha was familiar with them and their enormous possibilities, of which our chemists and scientific men have, at present, but explored the fringe.[6]
Sir Henry Rider Haggard was an English writer of adventure fiction romances set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and a pioneer of the lost world literary genre. He was also involved in land reform throughout the British Empire. His stories, situated at the lighter end of Victorian literature and including the eighteen Allan Quatermain stories beginning with King Solomon's Mines, continue to be popular and influential.
King Solomon's Mines is an 1885 popular novel by the English Victorian adventure writer and fabulist Sir H. Rider Haggard. It tells of an expedition through an unexplored region of Africa by a group of adventurers led by Allan Quatermain, searching for the missing brother of one of the party. It is one of the first English adventure novels set in Africa and is considered to be the genesis of the lost world literary genre. It is the first of fourteen novels and four short stories by Haggard about Allan Quatermain. Haggard dedicated this book to his childhood idol Sir Humphry Davy.
She, subtitled A History of Adventure, is a novel by the English writer H. Rider Haggard, published in book form in 1887 following serialisation in The Graphic magazine between October 1886 and January 1887. She was extraordinarily popular upon its release and has never been out of print.
Allan Quatermain is the protagonist of H. Rider Haggard's 1885 novel King Solomon's Mines, its one sequel Allan Quatermain (1887), twelve prequel novels and four prequel short stories, totalling eighteen works. An English professional big game hunter and adventurer, in film and television he has been portrayed by Richard Chamberlain, Sean Connery, Cedric Hardwicke, Patrick Swayze and Stewart Granger among others.
The World's Desire is a fantasy novel first published in 1890 and written by H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang. It was published in paperback by Ballantine Books as the fortieth volume of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in January 1972.
She is a 1965 British adventure film made by Hammer Film Productions in CinemaScope, based on the 1887 novel by H. Rider Haggard. It was directed by Robert Day and stars Ursula Andress, Peter Cushing, Bernard Cribbins, John Richardson, Rosenda Monteros, and Christopher Lee. The film was an international success and led to a 1968 sequel, The Vengeance of She, with Olinka Berova in the title role.
The Last Camel Died at Noon is the sixth in a series of historical mystery novels, written by Elizabeth Peters and featuring fictional sleuth and archaeologist Amelia Peabody. It was first published in 1991. This story in the historical mystery series has a new genre; Last Camel satirizes adventure novels in the tradition of Henry Rider Haggard. One reviewer considered this an homage to Haggard. The story is set in the 1897–1898 dig season, partly in Egypt, then moving west to Sudan.
She is a 1935 American adventure film produced by Merian C. Cooper. It is based on the 1887 novel of the same name by H. Rider Haggard. A man named Leo Vincey travels with his friend and the daughter of a guide to a mysterious place in Northern Siberia, where his ancestor reported finding the secret to immortality. They discover a lost world where a woman named She Who Must Be Obeyed - known as "She" - rules over an exotic civilization. She believes Leo is a reincarnation of his ancestor, whom She loved, and offers to share the secret of immortality with him. She dies in an effort to demonstrate that the immortal flame will not kill Leo. The film stars Helen Gahagan, Randolph Scott and Nigel Bruce. Cooper originally wanted to film She in color, but switched to black-and-white after last-minute budget cuts.
She and Allan is a novel by H. Rider Haggard, first published in 1921. It brought together his two most popular characters, Ayesha from his 1887 novel She, and Allan Quatermain from his 1885 novel King Solomon's Mines. Umslopogaas from Nada the Lily (1892) also appears in the novel as a major character. Along with the other three novels in the Ayesha series, She and Allan was adapted into the 1935 film She. She and Allan is the third story in the Ayesha series and the fifteenth in the Quatermain series.
The Vengeance of She is a 1968 British fantasy film directed by Cliff Owen and starring John Richardson, Olinka Berova, Edward Judd, André Morell and Colin Blakely. It bears little in common with the 1905 novel Ayesha: The Return of She by H. Rider Haggard. It was made by Hammer Films as a loose sequel to the 1965 hit film She.
She is a 1925 British-German fantasy adventure film made by Reciprocity Films, co-directed by Leander de Cordova and G. B. Samuelson, and starring Betty Blythe, Carlyle Blackwell, and Mary Odette. It was filmed in Berlin by a British film company as a co-production, and based on H. Rider Haggard's 1887 novel of the same name. According to the opening credits, the intertitles were specially written for the film by Haggard himself; he died in 1925, the year the film was made, and never got to see the finished film. The film still exists in its complete form today.
Maurice Greiffenhagen was a British painter and Royal Academician. He illustrated books and designed posters as well as painting idyllic landscapes.
She is a 1917 American silent fantasy adventure drama film directed by Kenean Buel and produced and distributed by the Fox Film Corporation. It was loosely based on H. Rider Haggard's oft filmed 1887 best-selling novel, She: A History of Adventure. Now considered lost, the film starred Valeska Suratt and Ben Taggart.
Wisdom's Daughter is a fantasy novel by British writer H. Rider Haggard, published in 1923, by Hutchinson & Co in the UK and Doubleday, Page and Company in the US. It is the final published book in the Ayesha series but chronologically the first book in the series. Along with the other three novels in the series, Wisdom's Daughter was adapted into the 1935 film She.
Benita: An African Romance is a novel by H. Rider Haggard.
Stella Fregelius: A Tale of Three Destinies is a 1904 novel by the British writer H. Rider Haggard about a young inventor who falls in love with a mysterious stranger while he is engaged to another woman. As a novelist, Haggard is known primarily for his adventure novels. Among his most widely read and critically acclaimed novels are King Solomon's Mines, Allan Quatermain and She. After his publication of She, Haggard wrote at least one novel a year every year until his death in 1925.
The Wizard is a novel by Henry Rider Haggard, first published by Longmans, Green, and Co., in 1896. The Wizard is one of the many examples of imperialist literature.
She is a 1916 British silent adventure film directed by Will Barker and Horace Lisle Lucoque and starring Alice Delysia, Henry Victor and Sydney Bland. It is an adaptation of H. Rider Haggard's 1887 novel She.
She is a 1911 American fantasy silent film and is the first film to attempt to portray the story in the 1887 novel of the same name by H. Rider Haggard. Made by the Thanhouser Company, the film was directed by George Nichols and featured his wife Viola Alberti as Amenartes. It starred Marguerite Snow in the title role and James Cruze in the joint role of Kallikrates and Leo Vincey and was based on a scenario by Theodore Marston.
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