11 h 44 minAudiobook15 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 11 h 44 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
A young hunter can face danger with a rifle—but what protects him when love makes every choice matter?
In H. Rider Haggard’s Marie, the older Allan Quatermain looks back on his youth in southern Africa. He has nerve, a rifle and little experience of love. Then he meets Marie Marais, a brave, clear-headed Boer woman. His love for her shapes his choices, while Hernan Pereira, a rival willing to use deceit, threatens their happiness.
Around them, Boer families leave the Cape Colony in ox wagons and travel north on the Great Trek. Their search for land draws the story toward Piet Retief and the Zulu king Dingaan. Private hopes meet public danger in an adventure where loyalty carries risks, and one wrong choice can cost a life.
What you’ll discover
- Allan before the legend Meet a young Quatermain whose courage is stronger than his experience of love.
- A love worth risking Discover Marie’s kindness and resolve as Allan’s devotion faces a scheming rival.
- Wagons on the move Follow families north through a country where their hopes meet deadly uncertainty.
- A watchful companion Get to know Hans, whose sharp eye often catches danger before Allan sees it.
- Romance meets real history Watch a personal struggle unfold against the Great Trek and the approach to Dingaan’s royal town.
Who will love it
You will love this book if you enjoy frontier adventure, a faithful love story, brave rides against the clock, sharp-tongued old women with big hearts, and history told by a narrator who was there.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A small quarrel begins a bond
- Their promise takes shape under fire
- A shooting match exposes a rival
- A letter turns love into action
- A deadly wager requires shared skill
- Marriage does not remove the danger
- Loyalty and hatred remain choices
- An old voice holds the memories
- Keeping faith carries a cost
Who’s who
- Allan QuatermainA small, sharp-shooting missionary's son who loves Marie and will risk his life for her and for his word.
- Marie MaraisA serious, brave and truthful Boer girl of Huguenot descent who has promised her heart to Allan alone.
- Henri MaraisMarie's excitable, fiercely religious father, who hates the English and has sworn that she will not marry one.
- Hernando PereiraMarie's rich, charming cousin, half Portuguese, who wants her for himself and will cheat and plot to win.
- Vrouw PrinslooA stout, outspoken Boer wife with a filthy dishcloth and a loyal heart, who becomes Allan's fiercest friend.
- HansAllan's Hottentot servant, cowardly in talk and faithful in deed, who gives Allan the key idea at a desperate hour.
- Pieter RetiefA respected Boer commandant who leads the trek into Natal and wants a grant of land from the Zulu king.
- DingaanThe Zulu king, fat, shrewd and cruel, who loves a wager and wants the tall white girl for himself.
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Marie 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.
Marie
by H. Rider Haggard · 1912
A boy gallops through the dark to reach the girl he loves before a war party attacks her farm.
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
Can a quarrel over a pencil mark on a wall grow into a love that lasts a lifetime? In Marie, an old hunter named Allan Quatermain sits down to write the one story he has never told.
Marie at a glance
- Reading time
- About 6 h 45 min5 h 20 min fast, 8 h slow
- Length
- 96,200 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1912by 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 tall girl and a small boy meet
Allan Quatermain is a small boy with bristly hair, the son of a missionary near Cradock in the Cape Colony. Two days a week he goes to Maraisfontein, the farm of the Boer Henri Marais, to learn French from Monsieur Leblanc.
Allan rides in through a peach orchard in full bloom. A lanky girl in a pink frock steps out to meet him. This is Marie, the daughter of the house, and she calls him little Allan. He insists he is taller, so they measure themselves against a wall, and she stands half an inch above him. Marie scratches her name deep into the sandstone and tells him that standing on tiptoe would be a lie, and that she does not lie.
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Details
- First published
- 1912
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 7 h 40 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Haggard, H. Rider. Marie. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/marie.
Haggard, H. R. (2026). Marie. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/marie (Original work published 1912)
Haggard, H. Rider. Marie. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/marie.
@book{haggard2026marie,
author = {Haggard, H. Rider},
title = {Marie},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/marie},
note = {First published 1912}
}
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What is Marie by H. Rider Haggard about?
It tells how the young Allan Quatermain falls in love with Marie Marais, a Boer girl, and follows her through a siege, a fever camp and the Great Trek until they meet the Zulu king Dingaan.
Is Marie a true story?
The lovers are invented, but Haggard built the novel around real events and people of 1836 and after, including Pieter Retief, the Great Trek and the Zulu king Dingaan. He wrote it in 1912.
Who is Macumazahn in Marie?
It is the Zulu name given to Allan Quatermain by the captain Kambula. It means Watcher-by-night, because Allan is clever enough to keep watch while others sleep. Allan keeps the name for the rest of his life.
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.
“Because you are me, and more than me.”
More by H. Rider Haggard
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