Well, after years and years of Hollywood-tinged incidental exposure to the world of Allan Quatermain (everything from the reprehensible King Solomon's Mines film starring, among other deadwood, a young Sharon Stone, to the much more recent and oddly entertaining League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), I finally got around to reading the underlying works. Surprise surprise, they're vastly superior to the Hollywood fare. The most pleasant surprises, at least to me, have been in how engaging the characters are. Sure, the stories are old and have some racial aspects that read a bit awkwardly for a modern audience, but they retain all the drama and flare I'd hoped for. One great aspect is Quatermain himself..neither an Indiana Jones-esque bon vivant or a massive-chinned Captain Britannia, he's an over-the-hill elephant hunter who's a passable shot and an self-proclaimed coward. Whether that self-assessment is true or not is part of the fun of reading, and of course an elephant hunter doesn't live to be old unless he's got a few tricks up his sleeve. Strangely enough, Quatermain reminds me of Bilbo Baggins from Lord of the Rings in a number of ways (or vice-versa), particularly his 'along for the ride' persona and how he tends to put up a bit of a fight and then get clonked on the head whenever a tussle starts up.
There are other parallels as well; for example both Haggard and Tolkien share the ability to condense vast amounts of narrative into a few choice phrases. Quatermain and company traverse hundreds of miles of desert in a few evocative paragraphs that nonetheless leave you fumbling for a glass of water. It takes one of Robert Jordan's characters that long just to turn a doorknob.
Lastly, the book itself is a real bargain. You get three unabridged classic novels for less than a typical hardcover new release. Moreover, they're all excellent reads..'She' is particularly interesting in its unexpected quality. Indeed, I think it's one of the earliest femme fatale novels I've encountered to date, which makes it noteworthy in its own right. In any event, you won't go wrong with this collection.