The Dispatch: More from CWR...

An invitation to mine and treasure the perfect summer read

Henry Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines is a rushing joy, breathing with Victorian virtue, bursting with heroic optimism, and bristling with quintessential gentlemen who are well-spoken, well-intentioned, and well-armed.

The covers of various editions of Henry Rider Haggard's "King Solomon's Mines," which was first published in 1885. (Images: Amazon.com)

If you haven’t read King Solomon’s Mines—written by Henry Rider Haggard in 1885—you can make this a summer to remember by reading it for the first time. There is nothing quite like King Solomon’s Mines, and the wonder it holds belongs to it alone.

What’s more, if you haven’t read King Solomon’s Mines, you may never have had the sudden, wonderful experience of reading a book that reminds you why it is a joy to read—a discovery as great as any lost treasure in any ancient mine.

In these days of noise and newsfeeds and nonsense, it is easy to forget to forget about the world for a while—especially during the glorious summer days. Summer should remind us that retreat and vacation are necessary for serious work. Nothing is so essential to sanity then a little fantasy, and nothing to bolster our stamina for the heaviness of reality than a little light fiction.

And perhaps the best book to serve as transport away from the mind-numbing barrage of political madness, an amoral society, and all our flashing screens is a little gem of a story called King Solomon’s Mines. Again, if you haven’t read it, do yourself a favor, give yourself a treat, and soothe your soul for a spell with an adventure that is absolutely worth its weight in diamonds.

When Mr. Haggard read the new adventure story, everyone was raving about in 1883, he was not as taken with it. His brother retorted, “I’d bet you could never write anything half as good.” It was a bet, and Haggard set out to write a tale that would trump Treasure Island. And, with reverence to Stevenson’s piratical masterpiece, Haggard wrote a yarn that takes a stand with it. Indeed, these two were often grouped as companion volumes, and they are well suited.

King Solomon’s Mines might be the ultimate summer read. Yes, that’s high praise—but if you doubt it, just give it a go. It’s a rushing joy, breathing with Victorian virtue, bursting with heroic optimism, and bristling with quintessential gentlemen who are well-spoken, well-intentioned, and well-armed. Catholics could use a stiff dose of those qualities of as a refresher to the high chivalric attitude that should form the backbone of the Catholic attitude.

When was the last time you read a book that carried you, by way of a ragged map scratched in blood, upon a perilous journey fraught with overtures of ominous legend to a mountain cave hiding a lost treasure chamber, where, presiding over an ageless table crowded with the mummified remains of a race of kings, loomed a colossal sculpture of Death in all his grim glory, brandishing a spear as a warning of the cunning snares set about the chamber?

You might think that Indiana Jones had conducted you to such a place at some point, but he didn’t. In fact, Dr. Jones only pulled pages from the playbook of Allan Quatermain, the indefatigable protagonist of King Solomon’s Mines. Tribes, traps, trickery, and stout comrades laden with ammunition belts and battle-axes, always with scraped chins and starched shirts, who hold honor and duty over all else because they are necessarily principled and not necessarily paid.

King Solomon’s Mines is a story to get swept up and lost in even as it gets swept up and lost in itself. With its stalwart, square-jawed characters led by Allan Quatermain—hunter, adventurer, gentleman, etc.—readers are pulled into a plunge that dives deep into the wild unknowns of South Africa in quest of a lost treasure buried in the legendary diamond mines of King Solomon.

Part of the greatness of this book lies in its oblivious fearlessness, its unassuming matter of fact-ness even in the face of the fantastic. It is in every way self-confident and in no way self-conscious—it doesn’t realize how wonderful it is, unrestrained in its grandeur, an adventure of terrible innocence, full of cruelties and grotesqueries, but totally unaware of the pulsing beauty it is a part of.

King Solomon’s Mines is not, at bottom, a story of a treasure trove from a lost age, but a story of three gentlemen from a lost age, further providing an apt instance of the power of literature to both reflect and affect the paradigms and perceptions of a people. Quatermain and his comrades exemplify a category of hero, representing and reinforce the cultural convictions concerning what makes a man a gentleman.

Though they are armed to the teeth and tough in war and weather, these gentlemen are genteel enough to speak gracefully, lend a hand, and wear a monocle no matter what the circumstances because it is decent and right and downright English. The adventures of Allan Quatermain are iconic of the fictional gentleman that still serve as a practical ideal for factual gentlemen.

At the same time, the gentlemen of King Solomon’s Mines are burdened with the prejudices of their time, and the book has not aged well in some respects. But these biases should not bury such a treasure from a new world of readers, no matter how modern their 21st-century sensitivities. A purity prevails that absolves it of colonial bigotry, especially as its errors are naturally, and again unconsciously, contradicted. Its characters seek the glory of lost treasure and the fame and fortune it promises, but instead find the less glittering but no less glorious treasure of human relations instead.

If summer days are long and you haven’t picked up a summer book yet, consider this lively and lovely recommendation to unburden the heart and refresh your outlook on life. King Solomon’s Mines will deliver and cast a delightful sheen of Catholic sanguinity on things grown grimy and dull. Fall on.


If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!

Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.


About Sean Fitzpatrick 31 Articles
Sean Fitzpatrick is a graduate of Thomas Aquinas College and serves on the faculty of Gregory the Great Academy in Elmhurst, Pennsylvania. He teaches Literature, Mythology, and Humanities. Mr. Fitzpatrick’s writings on education, literature, and culture have appeared in a number of journals including Crisis Magazine, Catholic Exchange, the Cardinal Newman Society’s Journal for Educators, and the Imaginative Conservative. He lives in Scranton with his wife, Sophie, and their seven children.

1 Comment

  1. Oh my goodness. Finally a shout-out for one of my all time favorite books! Thank you so much. I read this growing up & literally couldn’t put the book down until I’d finished the last page.
    There are a couple movie adaptations of King Solomon’s Mines but they don’t really do it justice. Paul Robeson had a great presence in the older version but he had that in every film he acted in.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

All comments posted at Catholic World Report are moderated. While vigorous debate is welcome and encouraged, please note that in the interest of maintaining a civilized and helpful level of discussion, comments containing obscene language or personal attacks—or those that are deemed by the editors to be needlessly combative or inflammatory—will not be published. Thank you.


*