King Solomon's Mines

Allan Quatermain, an elephant hunter in his fifties, is hired by Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good to find Sir Henry's brother, who vanished while looking for the legendary diamond mines of King Solomon. With a map three hundred years old, drawn in blood, they cross a burning desert and snow-covered mountains into the hidden land of Kukuanaland, where their servant Umbopa reveals himself as its rightful king, a civil war breaks out against the tyrant Twala and the ancient witch Gagool, and the treasure chamber itself becomes a trap.

H. Rider Haggard wrote it in 1885 on a bet with his brother that he could write a better adventure story than Treasure Island, and it launched the lost-world novel; its view of Africa belongs to the age of empire. John Nicholson reads it alone, in about ten hours.