Kalamdan

H. Rider Haggard

King Solomon's Mines

Mystery, Thriller and Adventure

Cover of King Solomon's Mines

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Language
English
First published
1885
Reading time
356 minutes
Chapters
21 chapters

About this book

Allan Quatermain, an elephant hunter who calls himself a cautious and even timid man, is asked by Sir Henry Curtis to help find his missing brother, who vanished while searching for the legendary diamond mines of King Solomon. Their only guide is a centuries-old map drawn in blood. H. Rider Haggard's 1885 novel was one of the first great lost-world adventures, with a desert crossing, snowy mountains, a hidden kingdom and a treasure chamber. Modern readers will notice the colonial attitudes of its time, but its pace and atmosphere still grip.

Now that this book is printed, and about to be given to the world, a sense of its shortcomings both in style and contents, weighs very heavily upon me. As regards the latter, I can only say that it does not pretend to be a full account of everything we did…

Introduction

About this edition

  • Source

    Project Gutenberg (eBook #2166)

    Text version

    Project Gutenberg eBook #2166 (updated 11 May 2021), downloaded 7 November 2026, typed from a 1907 Cassell edition. The illustration and map captions, the contents list, the transcriber's note, the dedication, the author's note of 1898 and his postscript of 1907 were not imported. The narrator's introduction, the 20 chapters and Haggard's own footnotes are kept unchanged, except that the paragraph breaks of Sir Henry Curtis's letter in Chapter XX, missing in the file, were restored.

  • License

    Public domain

    Copyright status last verified: 9 November 2026

  • Category

    Mystery, Thriller and Adventure

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Chapters

21 chapters
  1. Introduction3 min
  2. Chapter I. I Meet Sir Henry Curtis16 min
  3. Chapter II. The Legend of Solomon’s Mines16 min
  4. Chapter III. Umbopa Enters Our Service19 min
  5. Chapter IV. An Elephant Hunt16 min
  6. Chapter V. Our March Into the Desert22 min
  7. Chapter VI. Water! Water!18 min
  8. Chapter VII. Solomon’s Road26 min
  9. Chapter VIII. We Enter Kukuanaland14 min
  10. Chapter IX. Twala the King20 min
  11. Chapter X. The Witch-Hunt20 min
  12. Chapter XI. We Give a Sign22 min
  13. Chapter XII. Before the Battle17 min
  14. Chapter XIII. The Attack15 min
  15. Chapter XIV. The Last Stand of the Greys27 min
  16. Chapter XV. Good Falls Sick17 min
  17. Chapter XVI. The Place of Death18 min
  18. Chapter XVII. Solomon’s Treasure Chamber18 min
  19. Chapter XVIII. We Abandon Hope17 min
  20. Chapter XIX. Ignosi’s Farewell15 min
  21. Chapter XX. Found10 min

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