Forgotten Books: The People of the Mist - H. Rider Haggard

I’ve heard and read so many good things about H. Rider Haggard’s work over the years that I’ve been interested in reading more of it for a long time. More than 50 years ago, I read perhaps his most famous novel KING SOLOMON’S MINES, and although I remember enjoying it, that’s about all I recall.

Recently, having seen comments about the 1894 novel THE PEOPLE OF THE MIST being a great Lost Race yarn by Haggard, I decided to give it a try. It opens in England, with Leonard Outram and his older brother Tom losing the family estate because their father, in financial embarrassment, has committed suicide. Leonard and Tom vow to become rich enough to reclaim their birthright, and so off they go to Africa to hunt for gold. Unfortunately, Tom dies of a fever, and Leonard is left to carry on with the quest, aided only by his faithful servant, the native dwarf known as Otter.

In a chance encounter, they learn about a beautiful English girl, Juanna Rodd, who’s being held captive by slavers, and the girl’s servant, who is from a city hidden by a mysterious mist, promises Leonard that if he’ll help rescue Juanna from the slavers, she’ll lead them back to that lost city where there’s a fortune in rubies and sapphires waiting for the man bold enough to take them.

From there, of course, we gallop off on a grand adventure featuring evil slavers, evil high priests, human sacrifices, hidden passages, a giant idol, and a monstrous crocodile worshipped as the living embodiment of a god. THE PEOPLE OF THE MIST is full of stuff we’ve seen countless times in pulp stories and Tarzan movies. The thing to remember, though, is that Haggard was there first for a lot of it.

I love stories like this, no matter how many variations of them I read, and THE PEOPLE OF THE MIST is full of wonderful scenes that really linger in the imagination. Some of the images Haggard conjures up are really epic. Otter is an absolutely great character, too, and even though he’s supposedly Leonard’s sidekick, he’s the one who actually saves the day over and over. Everything builds up to a conclusion that is both satisfying and a little surprising. Haggard doesn’t let things play out exactly how you might expect.

Now, as you might expect with a book first published in 1894, the style is, at times, a little dry and old-fashioned, although the action scenes clip along nicely. THE PEOPLE OF THE MIST is considerably longer than the books I normally read, too, and it took me a while to get through it. But there are some great scenes and I wound up thoroughly enjoying it. It may be a while before I get around to reading another novel by H. Rider Haggard . . . but not 50 years this time, I’m thinking.