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H. Rider Haggard, 1887

Adventure

A scholar's promise to a dying friend leads towards an expedition into a world of ancient secrets.

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Length: 28 chapters
Reading time: About 7 hr 31 min
Words: 107,354

About the book

Horace Holly recalls a visitor to his Cambridge rooms whose request changes the course of his life. Responsibility for a child is joined to the custody of a mysterious chest. What begins as a private obligation opens towards an expedition far beyond the university.

The novel presents adventure through a narrator trying to account for extraordinary experience. Documents and inherited objects give the journey a sense of investigation as well as physical danger. Its central attractions include the pressure of an old mystery upon living people and the uneasy relationship between learning, curiosity and belief.

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Adventure

This edition

Text from Standard Ebooks, who proofread and typeset it and dedicate their edition to the public domain. H. Rider Haggard died more than 70 years ago, so the work is out of copyright in the UK. Includes the original dedication, introduction.