King Solomon's Mines

It is a curious thing that at my age—fifty-five last birthday—I should find myself taking up a pen to try to write a history. I wonder what sort of a history it will be when I have finished it, if ever I come to the end of the trip!

Map-led quest → desert ordeal → Kukuanaland politics → battle of Loo → witch-chamber treasure → rolling boulder escape runs a clean adventure spine, so plot scores 90.

"A sharp spear," runs the Kukuana saying, "needs no polish"; and on the same principle I venture to hope that a true story, however strange it may be, does not require to be decked out in fine words.

Quatermain's wry timid competence, Curtis's English solidity, Good's pince-nez vanity, and Umbopa/Ignosi's hidden royalty form ensemble pulp at its best, so cast scores 91.

"Curtis," I said, "I am in a condition of pitiable fear." Sir Henry stroked his yellow beard and laughed, as he answered—"I have heard you make that sort of remark before, Quatermain."

Once past Durban setup, thirst treks, battle, and dungeon sequence run with chase tempo and few dead zones, so pace scores 92.

"A sharp spear," runs the Kukuana saying, "needs no polish"; and on the same principle I venture to hope that a true story, however strange it may be, does not require to be decked out in fine words.

Quatermain's plain first-person voice is deliberately anti-literary and maximally readable—exactly the prose the adventure genre needs, so prose scores 87.

There, not more than forty or fifty miles from us, glittering like silver in the early rays of the morning sun, soared Sheba's Breasts; and stretching away for hundreds of miles on either side of them ran the great Suliman Berg.

Sheba's Breasts, Kukuanaland military order, Solomon's treasure chamber and stalactite Silent Ones render Africa as classic adventure geography, so world scores 92.

It is a curious thing that at my age—fifty-five last birthday—I should find myself taking up a pen to try to write a history.

Curtis's offer and Quatermain's map land stakes fast through self-deprecating charm rather than thunder, so hook scores 88.

I have seen the countless diamonds stored in Solomon's treasure chamber behind the white Death; but through the treachery of Gagool the witch-finder, even when I have seen it, I have not possessed it.

Genesis of the lost-world treasure-hunt genre and Allan Quatermain franchise templates imperial adventure fiction, so innov scores 94.

You must come home, Quatermain, and see about these things, especially if you insist upon making the magnificent present of the third share, which does not belong to me, to my brother George.

Sir Henry's postscript letter (Streeter diamonds, Good/Foulata, "come home") delivers warm comic closure after epic ordeal, so ending scores 90.