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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the rare flower you want to collect is sacred to the people who protect it?
In H. Rider Haggard’s Allan and the Holy Flower, an extraordinary orchid draws Allan Quatermain into an African expedition. Stephen wants the living plant, not a description. Allan supplies the practical experience: travel, hunting, negotiation, and a clear sense of how quickly an ambitious search can become a struggle to survive.
With them travels Hans, whose unassuming appearance hides sharp judgment and courage. Their search leads toward the Pongo people, for whom the orchid holds a sacred place. Amid dangers involving slavery and sacred customs, a collector’s desire meets a community’s determination to protect what it values. Finding the flower is only part of the challenge.
What you’ll discover
- An unusual quest Follow an expedition driven by the desire for a living orchid rather than conventional treasure.
- A practical adventurer Meet Allan Quatermain, whose dry wit keeps extraordinary dangers close to the business of survival.
- Courage beneath the surface Get to know Hans, a resourceful companion with sharp judgment beneath an unassuming appearance.
- A flower worth protecting Encounter the Pongo people, whose sacred orchid means far more than a collector’s specimen.
- The cost of wanting Explore the distance between desiring something rare and understanding what taking it might mean.
Who will love it
You will love this book if you enjoy Victorian adventure with a wry narrator, journeys into unmapped country, brave and funny companions, and a mystery of hidden gods.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A rescue opens an unexpected path
- Stephen chooses adventure over his father's plans
- Mercy and cunning change the fight
- A promise stands against a king's anger
- The invitation conceals a fearful bargain
- The future resists a simple explanation
- Courage does not have one face
- Allan's humor keeps the wonder human
- Small things carry the journey's meaning
Who’s who
- Allan QuatermainAn aging hunter and the narrator, who leads the expedition and doubts that magic is real.
- Stephen SomersA cheerful, reckless young orchid lover who funds the journey and follows adventure and a flower.
- Brother JohnA white-bearded American doctor and clergyman, thought mad by natives, who guides the party and hides a private search.
- HansAn old Hottentot servant, cunning and clear-headed, who saves the party again and again.
- MavovoA Zulu captain and witch doctor who trusts his Snake and fights beside his master.
- SammyA Cape cook with fine speeches and a frightened heart, loyal in his own odd way.
- KombaA cold and watchful young Pongo noble, soon to be Kalubi, who invites the visitors to his land.
- BausiThe fat, quick-tempered king of the Mazitu, who keeps the strangers as guests and prisoners.
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Allan and the Holy Flower in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Allan and the Holy Flower
by H. Rider Haggard · 1915
A hunter, a gentleman orchid grower and a wandering doctor chase one golden flower into a land of ape gods.
Medium level5–10 hours to read20 languages
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“Enchantment is just what this writer exercised; he fixed pictures in our minds that thirty years have been unable to wear away.”
In short
What would you do if a stranger walked out of the bush at dawn with a battered tin case, a butterfly net and a pressed flower as wide as a dinner tray? That is how help arrives for Allan Quatermain, the old hunter who tells this story.
Allan and the Holy Flower at a glance
- Reading time
- About 7 h 45 min6 h 10 min fast, 9 h 15 min slow
- Length
- 111,100 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1915by H. Rider Haggard
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A leopard attack brings a strange doctor
Allan Quatermain looks back on an adventure he thinks should not be lost. Years ago he guides a young Englishman, Charles Scroope, who has run off to Africa after a quarrel with his fiancée. Near Delagoa Bay a leopard drops on Allan from a rock. Scroope fights it with a knife until Allan shoots it dead.
Scroope then falls into a fever, and Allan sits beside him worn out, with little medicine and no sleep. At sunrise a tall figure in a torn skin rug walks between two thorn trees. This is Brother John, an American doctor whom the natives call Dogeetah. He says he walked all night because he felt someone calling him, and the hour matches the minute Allan sent out a silent cry for help. The doctor brings the fever down within days.
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Details
- First published
- 1915
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 8 h 50 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Haggard, H. Rider. Allan and the Holy Flower. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/allan-and-the-holy-flower.
Haggard, H. R. (2026). Allan and the holy flower. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/allan-and-the-holy-flower (Original work published 1915)
Haggard, H. Rider. Allan and the Holy Flower. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/allan-and-the-holy-flower.
@book{haggard2026allan,
author = {Haggard, H. Rider},
title = {Allan and the Holy Flower},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/allan-and-the-holy-flower},
note = {First published 1915}
}
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What is Allan and the Holy Flower about?
It follows hunter Allan Quatermain, an orchid-loving young Englishman and a wandering doctor as they travel into the African interior after a golden orchid, meeting slavers, a king and a people who worship an ape and a flower.
Who is Brother John in the book?
He is an American doctor and clergyman whom the natives call Dogeetah. He wanders Africa collecting butterflies and flowers, heals Charles Scroope of a leopard's wounds and shows Allan the golden flower that starts the expedition.
What is the Holy Flower?
It is a huge golden orchid with a white back petal barred in black and a dark mark in its pouch shaped like an ape's head. The Pongo people hold it sacred and worship it beside a great white ape.
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.
“When man dies, corn dies. Man is corn, and corn is man.”
More by H. Rider Haggard
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