Summary
Summary of Marie
Key ideas
Key idea 1
A young love meets public danger
Allan Quatermain looks back on his youth in southern Africa, when he had a rifle and courage but little experience of love. His story unfolds against the Great Trek, as Boer families leave the Cape Colony in ox wagons and move into the interior.
Haggard places a made-up romance among real events. Marie, the woman Allan loves, and a rival who wishes him harm become part of a journey toward the Zulu king Dingaan, where private choices carry the threat of public violence.
Key idea 2
The frontier tests every friendship
Start free to read
Key idea 3
Marie gives Allan something to lose
Start free to read
Key idea 4
Pereira turns desire into deceit
Start free to read
Key idea 5
The trek approaches a dangerous court
Start free to read
Key idea 6
Love and loyalty shape the choices
Start free to read
Key idea 7
Memory joins romance to history
Start free to read
Key idea 8
One love travels with a migration
Start free to read
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
Read the rest freeWho it’s for
For readers who love adventure, wagon journeys and love stories set against real history, and who want to meet Allan Quatermain as a young man.
What this book is
Marie is an adventure novel by H. Rider Haggard, first published in 1912. It belongs to the long series in which the old hunter Allan Quatermain looks back on his life. Here he goes back to his youth in southern Africa in the 1830s, when he is a young man with a rifle, a good deal of nerve and very little experience of love.
The story is set against the Great Trek, when Boer families left the Cape Colony in ox wagons and moved north into the interior. It leads toward the Zulu king Dingaan and his royal town, where real history turns violent. Haggard mixes a made-up romance with these real events. You get a girl named Marie, a rival who wishes Allan harm, and a country where one wrong choice can cost a life. Let us begin with the young man who tells the tale, and the world that shapes him.
In this summary
- 1A young hunter in a country on the moveFree
- 2Allan meets Marie and loses his heart
- 3A rival who will not let go
- 4The road leads toward Dingaan
- 5Love, loyalty and the pull of fate
- 6How Haggard tells the tale
Key point 1 of 6
A young hunter in a country on the move
The book opens with Allan Quatermain as an old man, looking back. He remembers himself as a youth, not yet the famous hunter of Haggard's other novels. He is poor, restless and quick with a rifle, and he lives by his wits on the frontier of southern Africa.
The setting matters as much as the hero. The Cape Colony is under British rule, and many Boer farmers dislike it. Families pack their goods into wagons and set out into lands they have never seen, hoping to live free of foreign law. This movement is the Great Trek, and it gives the novel its pace and its sense of danger.
Allan is drawn into this world as a guide, a hunter and a young man who can handle a gun. He is not a Boer himself, and that makes him a useful witness. He sees the farmers from close by, and he sees how little they know of the peoples whose land they must cross.
Haggard uses this opening to set a mood. The veld is wide, help is far off and every friendship can be tested. Allan has a loyal companion in Hans, a Hottentot servant who is sharp, funny and devoted. With Hans at his side, the young hunter is ready for what the story will bring him, and what it brings first is Marie.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
Check yourself
Why does Allan's honesty put him at risk against Pereira?
Right. “He is direct and honest, and he expects others to be the same.”Not quite. “He is direct and honest, and he expects others to be the same.”
What brings the trekkers' leader to Dingaan?
Right. “The trekkers want land, and in the real history of 1838 their leader Piet Retief went to the Zulu king Dingaan to ask for it.”Not quite. “The trekkers want land, and in the real history of 1838 their leader Piet Retief went to the Zulu king Dingaan to ask for it.”
How is Allan's story told?
Right. “The story is told in the first person, by Allan Quatermain looking back.”Not quite. “The story is told in the first person, by Allan Quatermain looking back.”
Questions about Marie
What is Marie by H. Rider Haggard about?
It tells of the young Allan Quatermain, who falls in love with a Boer woman named Marie during the Great Trek. Their story runs into rivalry, danger and the real events surrounding the Zulu king Dingaan.
Is Marie part of the Allan Quatermain series?
Yes. Haggard wrote many books about Allan Quatermain, and Marie goes back to his youth. It was published in 1912 and shows him before he became the seasoned hunter of the earlier novels.
Is Marie based on a true story?
The main characters of the romance are invented, but the setting is real. The Great Trek of the Boers, Piet Retief and the Zulu king Dingaan are part of actual history in the 1830s.
Who is Zikali in Marie?
Zikali is an old Zulu wizard known as the Opener of Roads. Haggard uses him in several Zulu stories as a cunning and feared figure.
Is Marie hard to read today?
The plot is easy to follow and the voice is plain.
