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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What can love hold onto when ambition rules the palace and the gods demand obedience?
In Morning Star, H. Rider Haggard takes you into the Egypt of the pharaohs: a world of temples, palaces, priests and old gods. A royal house stands under strain, and romance meets court intrigue. Love offers no quiet refuge here. It faces the hunger for power and the demands of duty.
The story moves from palace to temple to river, with danger never far away. In Haggard’s fictional Egypt, the gods are more than distant names: their worship shapes choices and fears. Adventure and romance unfold together, while a sense of fate hangs over a world where personal longing meets forces larger than itself.
What you’ll discover
- An Egypt of contrasts Enter temples and palaces where royal power and religious belief shape the story.
- Love under pressure Follow a romance tested by ambition, duty and the hunger for power.
- Gods close at hand Explore a fictional world where divine demands give worship a dangerous weight.
- A royal house strained Step into court intrigue where love must contend with the pursuit of power.
- Adventure with a shadow Feel the brisk pace and gathering sense of fate as the settings shift.
Who will love it
For listeners who love adventure in ancient Egypt, sorcery and divine doubles, bold heroines, secret loves, royal intrigue and villains who meet the justice they have earned.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A royal promise threatens Abi
- Courage binds Tua and Rames
- Tua saves Rames through a decree
- Abi turns hospitality into captivity
- The double answers the starving queen
- A beggar becomes an unexpected protector
- Fate still leaves room for choice
- Power reveals whom its users serve
- A divine promise meets human courage
Who’s who
- Neter-TuaQueen of Egypt, born under a divine promise and marked with the Sign of Life. She wants to marry Rames and keep her country free.
- RamesFoster brother of Tua, last of a lost royal line, a soldier who has lost a finger to a crocodile. He wants her love and her safety.
- AstiPriestess, prophetess and magician, Tua's foster mother and the mother of Rames. She wants to protect the queen and her son.
- MermesCaptain of the guard of Amen, Asti's husband, a noble man of the old royal blood. He wants peace and loyalty to Pharaoh.
- PharaohThe gentle, sickly ruler of Egypt, father of Tua. He wants his daughter safe and a peaceful land after him.
- AbiPrince of Memphis, half Hyksos, fierce and ambitious. He wants to be Pharaoh and take Tua as his wife.
- KakuAstrologer and sorcerer to Abi, learned, cowardly and cunning. He wants high office and safety for himself.
- KepherAn old beggar of the wilderness whose shadow mysteriously appears and who knows more than he says. He helps the women on their way.
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Morning Star 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.
Morning Star
by H. Rider Haggard · 1910
A starving queen in a tower sends her own double to marry the man who murdered her father.
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 happens when a queen is trapped, starving, in a tower, and the god who fathered her sends help in her own shape? That question sits at the heart of Morning Star, a romance of ancient Egypt by H. Rider Haggard.
Morning Star at a glance
- Reading time
- About 5 h 30 min4 h 20 min fast, 6 h 35 min slow
- Length
- 78,700 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1910by 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 jealous prince meets a god's promise
Prince Abi arrives at Thebes with three hundred soldiers and a bitter heart. His mother was a Hyksos, a people Egypt hates, so he cannot be sure of the throne even though Pharaoh is his brother.
On the barge his astrologer, Kaku, warns him that a bright star, the Morning Star of Amen, will one day cover Abi's own. Abi plans to kill Pharaoh that night, but Kaku talks him out of it. A slave girl named Merytra, whom Abi once struck, has overheard everything and tells Pharaoh. Next morning Pharaoh lets Abi make his bold demand, then describes the plot in full. Abi swears to serve any child Pharaoh may have.
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Details
- First published
- 1910
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 6 h 10 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Haggard, H. Rider. Morning Star. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/morning-star.
Haggard, H. R. (2026). Morning Star. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/morning-star (Original work published 1910)
Haggard, H. Rider. Morning Star. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/morning-star.
@book{haggard2026morning,
author = {Haggard, H. Rider},
title = {Morning Star},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/morning-star},
note = {First published 1910}
}
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What is Morning Star by H. Rider Haggard about?
It tells of Neter-Tua, a queen of ancient Egypt whose birth was promised by the god Amen. She loves Rames, fights off the schemes of her uncle Abi, and is helped by magic, a double and a mysterious beggar.
What is a Ka in Morning Star?
The Ka is the double, a second self that Egyptians believed lived beside each person and outlasted the body. In the book, Tua's Ka takes her form, rules in her place and carries out vengeance.
Is Morning Star a true story?
No, it is a romance. Haggard wrote it as fiction, using real Egyptian beliefs, such as the Ka and the wax images of sorcerers, and set it in an invented reign. Its heroine is imagined.
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.
“Honor is worth more than life, Mermes.”
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