BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation

King Solomon's Mines

A dramatic new full-cast BBC Radio 4 adaptation of H Rider Haggard's Victorian novel

H Rider Haggard (22 June 1856 – 14 May 1925) was an English writer of adventure novels set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and a pioneer of the Lost World literary genre. He was also involved in agricultural reform throughout the British Empire. His stories, situated at the lighter end of Victorian literature, continue to be popular and influential.

Tim McInnerny stars as Allan Quatermaine in this dramatic full-cast BBC Radio 4 adaptation of H Rider Haggard's classic Victorian novel. 
 
A chance meeting with Sir Henry Curtis and his friend John Good leads professional game hunter Allan Quatermaine on a dangerous expedition to the uncharted, hostile heart of Africa. Curtis’s brother disappeared while searching for the legendary diamond mine of King Solomon, and he needs Quatermaine’s expertise to re-trace his brother’s journey. Quatermaine agrees to Curtis’s generous terms, on the condition that the money is paid to his son if he does not survive. 
 
Joined by the imposing, mysterious Zulu Umbopa, the trio set off into the unknown. As they journey from the barren desert to the precipitous mountains, they discover clues from a past adventurer, now dead – and come close to death themselves. 
 
They encounter fierce Kukuana warriors, the beautiful Foulata, the blood-thirsty King Twala and his ancient, evil witch-finder Gagool – but will they find the mine and the treasure that is rumoured to lie within it? And if they do, will they make it out alive? 
 
This vivid dramatisation of Haggard’s popular adventure story is a combination of thrilling treasure hunt, suspenseful mystery and gripping psychological drama. 
 
Among the cast are Sope Dirisu and Adjoa Andoh. 
 
Duration: 2 hours approx.

Allan Quatermain is a Victorian Indiana Jones - he triumphs over deserts, snowy mountains, tribal warfare and witches, and unearths the mythical treasure of King Solomon's mines.

One of the great page-turners in English literature

I can distinctly remember handling the book as if it might somehow give me, a boy in Africa, magical access to the African adventures it contained. It still does now. I need only pick up this book and, like the door to Solomon's treasure chamber, a mass of stone rises from the floor and vanishes into the rock above

Henry Rider Haggard was born in Norfolk in 1856. His post of junior secretary to the Lieutenant-Governor of Natal, Sir Henry Bulwer meant that he travelled and he spent six years in South Africa . Haggard was bet by his brother that he could not write as good a novel as Stevenson's Treasure Island. The result of this bet was Haggard's 1885 book, King Solomon's Mines. It became a runaway bestseller so Haggard was able to leave London and concentrate on his writing. He published She in 1887. Andrew Lang thought She was ‘one of the most astonishing romances I ever read. The more impossible it is, the better you do it, till it seems like a story from the literature of another planet'. Haggard died in 1925.

Allan Quatermain is a Victorian Indiana Jones - he triumphs over deserts, snowy mountains, tribal warfare and witches, and unearths the mythical treasure of King Solomon's mines. 
 
 This faithful but unpretending record of a remarkable adventure is hereby respectfully dedicated by the narrator to all the big boys and little boys who read it. I offer apologies for my blunt way of writing. I can but say in excuse of it that I am more accustomed to handling a rifle than a pen. This is the strange history of our journey into the heart of Kukuanaland; a trek into the interior of the dark continent to find a lost friend and discover the diamond mines of King Solomon.In the course of a long life of close shaves, I never had such shaves as those which I have recently experienced. 
 
- Allan Quatermain, of Durban, Natal, Gentleman 
 
 ‘One of the great page-turners in English literature’ Guardian

The Victorian equivalent of a blockbuster. This is a thrilling tale of a female that is decidedly more deadly than the male.

Few books bolder in conception, more vigorous in treatment, or fresher in fancy, have appeared for a long time

The more impossible it gets the better Mr. Haggard does it...his astonishing imagination, and a certain vraisemblance makes the most impossible adventures appear true

My father used to read me lots of fabulous, old fashioned adventure stories but I've been haunted by King Solomon's Mines by H Rider Haggard. It's a fantastically bloodthirsty novel, of course, but the bit that stayed with this eight year-old girl when the lights went out was the part where they go into the mines and see all the skeletons of the people who had been there before them. It wasn't the physical remains that bothered me, but the worry about what had happened to their spirits. Were their souls trapped down there? Only now do I realise how much Haggard has influenced my own writing about ghosts and underground caves.

Read the thrilling Victorian blockbuster, with an introduction from Booker prize-winning author Margaret Atwood. 
 
A note from The Editor: 
 
I feel it incumbent upon me to explain how this wonderful and mysterious history found its way into my hands. I received a letter and two parcels- one a manuscript, the other containing a scarab and an ancient sherd - from a brief acquaintance of mine called Mr Horace Holly. Mr Holly and his ward Leo Vincey had passed through a most uncommon African adventure, a tale of a nature so marvellous that I fear the reader might disbelieve it. To me the story seems to bear the stamp of truth upon its face. But I must leave the reader to form his own judgment... And with this explanation I introduce the world to Ayesha - She-who-must-be-obeyed - and the Caves of Kôr.

New to Black Classics with a New Introduction by Giles Foden

Sir Henry Rider Haggard (1856-1925) was a prolific English writer, who published colorful novels set in unknown regions and lost kingdoms of Africa, or some other corner of the world: Iceland, Constantinople, Mexico, Ancient Egypt. Haggard's best-known work is the romantic adventure tale KING SOLOMON'S MINES (1885), which was inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson' s famous Treasure Island. 
 
 
Giles Foden was born in Warwickshire in 1967. His family moved to Malawi in 1972 where he was brought up. His first novel, the acclaimed The Last King of Scotland (1998), is set during Idi Amin's rule of Uganda in the 1970s and won the Whitbread First Novel Award; his second novel, Ladysmith (1999), is set during the Anglo-Boer War in 1899; Zanzibar (2002), is set in East Africa and explores the events surrounding the bombings of American embassies in 1998. A new book, The Battle for Lake Tanganyika, was published in 2004.

Three men trek to the remote African interior in search of a lost friend - and reach, at the end of a perilous journey, an unknown land cut off from the world, where terrible dangers threaten anyone who ventures near the spectacular diamond mines of King Solomon...

A powerful adventure story featuring Ayesha - she who must be obeyed

Drawing on his fascination with African lore and his love of adventure to create a seminal work of fantasy, H. Rider Haggard's She is edited with an introduction by Patrick Brantlinger in Penguin Classics. 
 
On his twenty-fifth birthday, Leo Vincey opens the silver casket that his father has left to him. It contains a letter recounting the legend of a white sorceress who rules an African tribe and of his father's quest to find this remote race. To find out for himself if the story is true, Leo and his companions set sail for Zanzibar. There, he is brought face to face with Ayesha, She-who-must-be-obeyed: dictator, femme fatale, tyrant and beauty. She has been waiting for centuries for the true descendant of Kallikrates, her murdered lover, to arrive, and arrive he does - in an unexpected form. Blending breathtaking adventure with a brooding sense of mystery and menace, She is a story of romance, exploration discovery and heroism that has lost none of its power to enthral. 
 
Patrick Brantlinger's introduction discusses H. Rider Haggard's experience of Empire, and how he took the Africa of fantasies and wove its magic into She. This edition also includes further reading and explanatory notes. 
 
Henry Rider Haggard (1856-1925) was born in Bradenham, Norfolk, the sixth son of a lawyer. In 1875 his father procured for him the post of junior secretary to the Governor of Natal; spending six years in South Africa, he remained fascinated by the country's landscape, wildlife and tribal societies for the rest of his life. Haggard's first novel King Solomon's Mines was published in 1885, shortly after had passed the bar, proving so successful that he was able to move back to Norfolk to concentrate on his writing. 
 
If you enjoyed She, you might like John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps, also available in Penguin Classics. 
 
'It is full of hidden meaning ... the eternal feminine, the immortality of our emotions' 
Sigmund Freud

H. Rider Haggard (1856-1925) worked in South Africa during the time of Britian's war with the Zulus and the First Boer War. He turned these experiences into fiction on his return to England and achieved popular and critical acclaim with KING SOLOMON'S MINES (1885), ALLAN QUATERMAIN (1887) and SHE (1887). 
 
 
Patrick Brantlinger is Professor of English at Indiana University, Illinois. He has published work on British literature and imperialism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

On his twenty-fifth birthday, Leo Vincey opens the silver casket that his father has left to him. It contains a letter recounting the legend of a white sorceress who rules an African tribe and of his father's quest to find this remote race. To find out for himself if the story is true, Leo and his companions set sail for Zanzibar. There, he is brought face to face with Ayesha, She-who-must-be-obeyed: dictator, femme fatale, tyrant and beauty. She has been waiting for centuries for the true descendant of Kallikrates, her murdered lover, to arrive, and arrive he does - in an unexpected form. Blending breathtaking adventure with a brooding sense of mystery and menace, She is a story of romance, exploration discovery and heroism that has lost none of its power to enthrall.

Two BBC Radio Full-Cast Dramatisations

King Solomon’s Mines & She

BBC adaptations of H. Rider Haggard’s best-known novels, starring Tim McInnerny 
 
Victorian adventure writer Henry Rider Haggard is most famous for his novel King Solomon’s Mines, which launched the ‘Lost World’ genre of SF, featuring the discovery of long-forgotten or legendary civilizations. His follow-up, She, was also hugely successful, and has been hailed as ‘one of the great classics of fantasy fiction’. The radio dramatisations of both tales are collected here, with casts including Tim McInnerny, Adjoa Andoh, Finlay Robertson, Oliver Chris and Mia Soteriou. 
 
King Solomon’s Mines – Desperate to find his brother George, who disappeared a year ago while searching for the fabled diamond mines of King Solomon, Sir Henry Curtis recruits intrepid hunter Allan Quatermain to join him and his friend Captain John Good on a dangerous mission. Believing he will never return, Quatermain keeps a journal for his son recounting their adventures. As the explorers journey into the heart of Africa, they encounter fierce Kukuana warriors, the beautiful Foulata, the bloodthirsty King Twala and his witch-finder Gagool. But will they find the mine and the treasure that is rumoured to lie within it? 
 
She – Ludwig Holly and his ward Leo's quest for the truth behind the legend of Leo's ancestry takes them on an extraordinary adventure to the mysterious African interior. Surviving shipwreck and cannibals, they arrive in the lost city of Kor, where they meet the bewitching White Queen, Ayesha. Over 2000 years old, but still possessing a beauty that enthrals and terrifies all who see her, she rules despotically over her secret kingdom. Ayesha has waited two millennia for her lover to return – and on seeing Leo, she is convinced her wait is over… 
 
Cast and credits 
Written by H Rider Haggard 
First published 1885 (King Solomon’s Mines) and 1887 (She) 
 
King Solomon’s Mines 
Allan Quatermain – Tim McInnerny 
Sir Henry Curtis – David Sturzaker 
Captain John Good – Simon Ludders 
Umbopa – Sope Dirisu 
Infadoos – Maynard Eziashi 
Ventvogel/Scragga – Tonderai Munyevu 
Silvestre – Joe Ferrara 
Officer/George – Finlay Robertson 
Gagool – Adjoa Andoh 
Foulata – Emmanuella Cole 
Twala – Femi Elufowoju 
 
Dramatised by Chris Harrald 
Directed by Liz Webb 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 2-9 April 2017 
 
She 
Ludwig Holly – Tim McInnerny 
Leo – Oliver Chris 
Ayesha – Mia Soteriou 
Job – Howard Coggins 
Billali – Ben Onwukwe 
Amenartas/Ustane – Janice Acquah 
Vincey – Tom Sherman 
Agarah – Damian Lynch 
Young Leo – Oliver Baynham 
 
Adapted by Hattie Naylor 
Produced by Sara Davies 
Music by Elizabeth Purnell 
First broadcast Radio 4, 2-9 July 2006 
 
© 2025 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) © 2025 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

H. Rider Haggard

Alan Langford

Rediscover the Puffin Classics collection and bring the best-loved classics to a new generation - including this thrilling edition of King Solomon's Mines. 
 
Following a mysterious ancient map, a small group of men trek into southern Africa in search of a lost friend - and the fabled diamond mines of King Solomon. Led by the intrepid English adventurer and fortune hunter Allan Quartermain, they discover a frozen corpse, survive untold dangers in remote mountains and deserts, and encounter the merciless King Twala en route to the legendary hoard of diamonds. 
 
One of the bestselling novels of the l9th century and the inspiration for countless adventure stories, including Indiana Jones, this is a must-read for lovers of lost worlds.

H. Rider Haggard

King Solomon's Mines

Select a format:

Pre-order:

Summary

More books from this author