Editing King Solomon's Mines (section)

==Literary significance and criticism==
Haggard wrote the novel as a result of a five-[[Shilling (British coin)|shilling]] wager with his brother, who said that he could not write a novel half as good as [[Robert Louis Stevenson]]'s ''[[Treasure Island]]'' (1883).<ref name=bandw>{{cite web |url=http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/haggard.htm |title=Henry Rider Haggard |website=Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi) |first=Petri |last=Liukkonen |publisher=[[Kuusankoski]] Public Library |location=Finland |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061205022814/http://kirjasto.sci.fi/haggard.htm |archive-date=5 December 2006 |url-status=dead |access-date=29 December 2006 }}</ref><ref name=Monsman>Gerald Monsman (ed.), ''King Solomon's Mines'', Broadview Press, 2002. {{ISBN|1-55111-439-9}}. [https://books.google.com/books?id=WFf3SjK8J0kC&dq=%22king+solomon%27s+mines%22+%22treasure+island%22+roger+lancelyn+green&pg=PA11 Page 11].</ref> He wrote it in a short time, somewhere between six<ref name=bandw/> and sixteen<ref name="owc">Dennis Butts, 'Introduction' in ''King Solomon's Mines'' ed. by Dennis Butts (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. vii–xviii</ref> weeks between January and 21 April 1885. However, the book was a complete novelty and was rejected by one publisher after another.  After six months, ''King Solomon's Mines'' was published, and the book became the year's best seller, with printers struggling to print copies fast enough.<ref name=Monsman/>

[[Andrew Lang]] praised the book in that day’s ''[[Saturday Review (London newspaper)|Saturday Review]]'',  describing it as a "peculiarly thrilling and vigorous tale of adventure” and effusing  "we have only praise for the very remarkable and uncommon powers of invention and gift of "vision" which Mr. Haggard displays".<ref>Gerald Monsman (ed.), ''King Solomon's Mines'', Broadview Press, 2002. {{ISBN|1-55111-439-9}}. [https://books.google.com/books?id=PXmUC20xzEsC&dq=%22who+is+not+all+a+zulu%22&pg=PA245 Page 245].</ref>

In the process, ''King Solomon's Mines'' created a new genre known as the "[[Lost World (genre)|Lost World]]", which inspired [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]]' ''[[The Land That Time Forgot (novel)|The Land That Time Forgot]]'', [[Arthur Conan Doyle]]'s ''[[The Lost World (Doyle novel)|The Lost World]]'', [[Rudyard Kipling]]'s ''[[The Man Who Would Be King]]''<ref>Robert E. Morsberger, "Afterword" in ''King Solomon's Mines'' ''[[Reader's Digest]]'' edition 1994. {{ISBN|0-89577-553-0}}</ref> and [[H. P. Lovecraft]]'s ''[[At the Mountains of Madness]]''. In ''[[The Return of Tarzan]]'' (1913), [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]] introduced his own [[Lost city (fiction)|lost city]] of ''[[Opar (fictional city)|Opar]]'' (supposedly the same as the Biblical [[Ophir]] with which King Solomon traded), in which the influence of ''King Solomon's Mines'' is evident. Opar reappeared in further [[Tarzan]] novels and was later taken up in the [[Khokarsa]] novels of [[Philip José Farmer]] and various derivative works in other media. Burroughs also introduced other lost cities in various hidden corners of Africa for Tarzan to visit, such as a valley in [[Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle (novel)|Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle]] inhabited by stray [[Crusaders]] still maintaining a medieval way of life. [[Robert E. Howard]]'s [[Conan the Barbarian]] also visited several lost cities, and [[Lee Falk]]'s ''[[The Phantom]]'' was initially written in this genre. A much later Lost World novel is [[Michael Crichton]]'s ''[[Congo (novel)|Congo]]'', which is set in the 1970s and features characters seeking a trove of diamonds in the lost city of [[Zanj|Zinj]] for use in electronic components rather than jewellery. The last sentence in ''Congo'' reads: “The projected intersection point now marked a field of black quatermain lava with an average depth of eight hundred meters—nearly half a mile-over the Lost City of Zinj.” The name “Quatermain” is sufficiently close to the geological term “Quaternary” that some readers, to be sure, would have missed the homage.

As in ''Treasure Island'', the narrator of ''King Solomon's Mines'' tells his tale in the first person, in an easy conversational style. Almost entirely missing (except in the speech of the Kukuanas) is the ornate language usually associated with novels of this era. Haggard's use of the first-person subjective perspective also contrasts with the omniscient third-person viewpoint then in vogue among influential writers such as [[Anthony Trollope]], [[Thomas Hardy]], and [[George Eliot]].

The book has scholarly value for the [[Colonialism|colonialist]] attitudes that Haggard expresses,<ref>{{cite book |last=Etherington |first=Norman |date=1984 |title=Rider Haggard |location=Boston |publisher=Twayne Publishers |pages=91–106 |isbn=9780805768695}}</ref> and for the way that he portrays the relationships between the [[White people|white]] and African characters. Haggard portrays some African characters, such as Twala and Gagool, as barbarians but their barbarity has more to do with their roles as antagonists in the story than with their African heritage. He also presents the other side of the coin, showing some black Africans (such as Ignosi) as heroes and heroines, and shows respect for their culture. The book expresses much less prejudice than some of the later books in this genre. Indeed, Quatermain stated that he refused to use the word "nigger" and that many Africans are more worthy of the title of "gentleman" than the Europeans who settle or adventure in the country.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2166/2166-h/2166-h.htm#chap01 |title=The Project Gutenberg E-text of King Solomon's Mines, by H. Rider Haggard |via=Project Gutenberg|access-date=2017-04-03}}</ref> Haggard even included an interracial romance between a Kukuana woman, Foulata, and the white Englishman Captain Good. The narrator tries to discourage the relationship, dreading the uproar that such a marriage would cause back home; however, he has no objection to the lady, whom he considers very beautiful and noble. Haggard eventually kills off Foulata, who dies in Good's arms.

Kukuanaland is said in the book to be forty [[League (unit)|leagues]] north of the [[Kafue River|Lukanga river]], in modern-day [[Zambia]], which would place it in the extreme southeast of the present [[Democratic Republic of Congo]]. The culture of the Kukuanas shares many attributes with the Zulus, such as the [[Zulu language]] being spoken and the [[kraal]] system being used.