OGR BOOK SYNOPSIS

Horace Holly, a university professor from Cambridge, Leo Vincey and Leo's servant, Job, travel to the continent of Africa and become shipwrecked on Africa's southern shore. They survive together with Mahomed and explore the unexplored areas of Africa. There, they come across the ancient city of Kor, inhabited by a primal tribe of Amahagger people. They discover that they're ruled by a vicious queen known as Hiya, also known as 'She' who had warned the tribes-people about their forthcoming. The chief elder of the tribe takes command of the men and introduce them to the way of his people. Ustane, one of the Amahagger women, falls in love with Vincey. Mahomed is killed in a scuffle with Vincey, who becomes gravely wounded and dies later while being under the tending of Ustane. The tribe elder returns and declares them under the protection of She. They are taken to the home of She, who lies under a dormant volcano among cavernous tombs. There, Holly is presented to She, a white sorceress named Ayesha. Her beauty is so great that it enchants any man who beholds it. She, who is veiled and lies behind a partition, warns Holly that the power of her splendour arouses both desire and fear, but he is dubious. When she shows herself, however, Holly is enraptured and prostrates himself before her. He learns that She has lived in the realm of Kr for over two millennia, awaiting the reincarnated return of her lover, Kallikrates (whom she had accidentally slain in a fit of jealous rage). After she veils herself again, Holly remembers Vincey and begs Ayesha to visit his ward. Having agreed, she is startled upon seeing him, as she believes him to be the reincarnation of Kallikrates. She heals Vincey but becomes jealous of the girl, Ustane who is then ordered to leave the home of She, but refuses and is struck down by She. Despite the murder of their friend, Holly and Vincey cannot free themselves from the power of She's beauty. They remain amongst the tombs as Vincey recovers his strength, and She lectures Holly on the ancient history of Kr. In the climax of the novel, Ayesha takes the two men to see the pillar of fire, passing through the ruined city of Kr. She is determined that Vincey should bathe in the fire to become immortal and remain with her forever. They come to a great cavern, but at the last Vincey doubts the safety of entering the flame. To allay his fears, She steps into the Spirit of Life. With this second immersion, she reverts to her true age, witheringaway in the fire. The sight is so shocking that Job dies in fright. Before dying, She tells Vincey, "I die not. I shall come again."

She is set firmly in the imperialist literature of the late-Victorian period. She invokes a particularly British view of the world since it was written in imperialistic Britain. Although Haggard penned a number of novels that portrayed Africans in a comparatively realistic light, She was not among their number. In her role as the seductive femme fatale, Ayesha is part of a long tradition of male fantasy that includes Homer's Circe, Shakespeare's Cleopatra, and Keats's 'La Belle Dame sans Merci'. Brantlinger identifies the theme of "the white (or at least light-skinned) queen ruling a black or brown-skinned savage race" as "a powerfully erotic one" with its opposite being "the image of the helpless white woman captured by savages and threatened . She has been adapted for the cinema at least ten times, and was one of the earliest films to be made in 1899 as La Cologne de fey. A 1911 version starred Marguerite Snow and in 1917 Valeska Suratt appeared in a production for Fox which is lost. In 1925 a silent film of She was produced with the active participation of Rider Haggard and starring Betty Blythe. A decade later another cinematic version of the novel was released, featuring Helen Gahagan, Randolph Scott and Nigel Bruce. This `935 adaptation was set in the Arctic, rather than Africa, and depicts the ancient civilisation of the story in an Art Deco style, with music by Max Steiner. The 1965 film She was produced by Hammer Film Productions and starred Ursula Andress as Ayesha and John Richardson as her reincarnated love, with Peter Cushing and Bernard Cribbins as other members of the expedition. In 2001 another adaptation was released direct-to-video with Ian Duncan as Leo Vincey, Ophlie Winter as Ayesha and Marie Bummer as Roxanne.