12 h 40 minAudiobook17 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · 311 pagesHardcover · 6 × 9 in · 311 pagesAbout this book
What if the promise of eternal life comes from a queen who leaves no room for your wishes?
In H. Rider Haggard’s She, Cambridge scholar Horace Holly raises Leo Vincey and keeps a sealed chest for him. When Leo reaches adulthood, its contents reveal an ancient family wrong and point toward a mysterious woman in Africa. The two follow the clue into a lost kingdom, where welcome and danger stand close together.
Among the Amahagger, who live amid the ruins of an older civilization, Ayesha rules through fear, knowledge, and extraordinary powers. She believes Leo is her lost lover returned. Holly feels her pull, while Ustane refuses to surrender her own claim to Leo’s love. Their search becomes a struggle over loyalty, desire, and control.
What you’ll discover
- A chest of secrets Follow an ancient family story from Holly’s care into a journey neither man expects.
- A kingdom among ruins Enter the world of the Amahagger, where hospitality offers no promise of safety.
- A queen beyond time Meet Ayesha, whose centuries of life bind extraordinary knowledge to a will that demands obedience.
- Love against command Discover Ustane’s refusal to let a powerful queen decide whose love matters most.
- The burden of forever Explore whether endless life makes love and power richer gifts or more dangerous burdens.
Who will love it
Readers who love lost worlds, daring expeditions and larger-than-life heroines, and who enjoy a narrator with a dry sense of humour. It suits anyone drawn to ancient mysteries, secret cities and questions about love, beauty and mortality.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A Dying Friend Leaves a Strange Trust
- The Broken Pot Tells a Dangerous Tale
- Storm, Swamp and the Stone Head
- The Amahagger and the Woman Who Kisses
- A Feast with a Hot Pot
- Fever, Marsh and the Road to Kôr
- The Veiled Queen Speaks
- A Soul in Hell and a Day of Judgment
- What the Story Is Really About
Who’s who
- Ludwig Horace HollyA short, immensely strong and plain-looking Cambridge scholar who tells the tale. He guards Leo with fierce love and doubts every marvel until he meets the queen.
- Leo VinceyA tall, golden-haired young man of twenty-five, brave and cheerful, who inherits a family quest and means to settle it by seeing the African coast for himself.
- JobHolly's loyal, round-faced servant, a practical Englishman who distrusts foreigners and magic alike and follows his masters out of plain devotion.
- AyeshaThe veiled queen of the Amahagger, called She-who-must-be-obeyed, who claims to have lived two thousand years and waits for a lost love.
- BillaliThe shrewd, white-bearded Father of an Amahagger household, who calls Holly Baboon and becomes his friend, bound by gratitude and by fear of his queen.
- UstaneA proud, brave Amahagger woman who chooses Leo as her husband and nurses him through fever, ready to defend him against any enemy.
- MahomedThe Arab steersman who guides the whaleboat through the breakers and then follows the party inland, terrified of the enchanted country around him.
- VinceyLeo's dying father, a scholar who sends his son a chest of secrets and begs his friend Holly to raise the boy and keep the family promise.
Formats and delivery
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 12 h 40 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 17 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in, 311 pages: 11,95 USD when you start free, 17,95 USD on its own.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in, 311 pages: 18,95 USD when you start free, 24,95 USD on its own.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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She
by H. Rider Haggard · 1887
Two Englishmen follow a broken pot to a lost African city ruled by a queen who has waited two thousand years.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
She is an adventure novel by H. Rider Haggard, first printed in the 1880s.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A Dying Friend Leaves a Strange Trust
The story opens in Cambridge, where the young scholar Ludwig Horace Holly is working late over his mathematics. He is short, immensely strong and, by his own account, so ugly that he has learned to live without company. Near midnight his only friend, a man named Vincey, staggers in carrying a heavy iron box. Vincey is coughing blood and says he will not live to see morning.
Vincey asks Holly to raise his five-year-old son Leo until the boy is twenty-five. The child is not to go to school, and he must learn Greek, advanced mathematics and Arabic. On his twenty-fifth birthday, Holly is to open the box with three keys and let Leo decide whether to take up a quest. Vincey offers half his income as payment and makes Holly swear a solemn oath. He adds that he will haunt his friend if the trust is broken.
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What is the book She by H. Rider Haggard about?
It follows Holly and his adopted son Leo as they trace an ancient family legend to a hidden African city. There they meet Ayesha, a queen said to have lived for two thousand years, and face the dangers of her kingdom.
Who is She-who-must-be-obeyed?
She is the title the Amahagger give their ruler, whose own name is Ayesha. She is a veiled queen of dazzling beauty who rules a kingdom of caves and tombs, and who claims to have found a way to hold off death.
What does the potsherd of Amenartas mean in the story?
The sherd is a piece of clay jar on which an Egyptian princess wrote a message to her son. It describes her husband's death in Africa, and it passes through the family for centuries, drawing Leo and Holly to the quest.
The author
H. Rider Haggard
1856–1925 · English adventure novelist
Henry Rider Haggard (1856–1925) was an English novelist. He was born in Norfolk, lived in southern Africa from 1875 to 1881, and later settled in Norfolk. He wrote King Solomon’s Mines (1885), She (1887), and Beatrice (1890). He also wrote about agriculture and rural life. He died in London.
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