''The Ancient Allan'' is a novel by H. Rider Haggard.

Plot

Though ''The Ancient Allan'' features Haggard's recurring hero

Allan Quatermain Allan Quatermain is the protagonist of H. Rider Haggard's 1885 novel ''King Solomon's Mines'', its one sequel ''Allan Quatermain'' (1887), twelve prequel novels and four prequel short stories, totalling eighteen works. An English professional ...

, most of the plot concerns one of his

past lives Reincarnation, also known as rebirth or transmigration, is the Philosophy, philosophical or Religion, religious concept that the non-physical essence of a living being begins a new life in a different physical form or physical body, body after ...

. In the

frame story A frame is often a structural system that supports other components of a physical construction and/or steel frame that limits the construction's extent. Frame and FRAME may also refer to: Physical objects In building construction *Framing (con ...

, he and Lady Ragnall (introduced in ''

The Ivory Child ''The Ivory Child'' is a novel by H. Rider Haggard featuring Allan Quatermain. Plot While Quatermain visits Lord Randall, two foreigners come asking for Macumazana—that is, asking for Allan Quatermain by the name he used among the Africans. T ...

'') inhale ''taduki'', a fictional

drug A drug is any chemical substance that causes a change in an organism's physiology or psychology when consumed. Drugs are typically distinguished from food and substances that provide nutritional support. Consumption of drugs can be via insuffla ...

that induces visions of previous incarnations. Thus, Quartermain relives the experiences of ancient Egyptian aristocrat Shabaka (a descendant of the

pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: ''pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until the an ...

of the same

name A name is a term used for identification by an external observer. They can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. The entity identified by a name is called its referent. A personal ...

)—alongside flashes of his earlier lives—and Ragnall those of Amada, an ancient priestess of

Isis Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingd ...

; several recurring characters of the Quartermain novels also appear under various guises.

Reception

E. F. Bleiler Everett Franklin Bleiler (April 30, 1920 – June 13, 2010) was an American editor, bibliographer, and scholar of science fiction, detective fiction, and fantasy literature. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he co-edited the first "year's best" s ...

stated the novel had "reasonably good adventure material in the first portion of the novel, but threadbare characterizations and Victorian ethics."

References

External links

Complete novel
at

Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a Virtual volunteering, volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the ...

Novels by H. Rider Haggard 1920 British novels 1920 fantasy novels Fiction set in 1882 {{1920s-novel-stub