Considered one of the classic novels of imaginative literature, and with over 80 million copies sold in 44 different languages, She ranks alongside King Solomon's Mines as H. Rider Haggard's most successful and influential novel. Told in first-person narrative, the story follows the journey of Horace Holly and his ward Leo Vincey to a lost kingdom in the African interior. There, they encounter a primitive race of natives and a mysterious white queen, Ayesha, who reigns as the all-powerful 'She,' (as in 'She-who-must-be-obeyed').
Adapted from H. Rider Haggard's classic adventure/lost civilisation story She, this Pat Finn burlesque-style pantomime was possibly subtitled 'The White Queen of the Amahagger.'
Haggard's original story, serialized in 1886 and 1887, is a first-person narrative that follows the journey of young Cambridge professor Horace Holly and his ward Leo Vincey to a lost kingdom in the African interior. There, they encounter a primitive race of natives and a mysterious white queen, Ayesha, who reigns as the all-powerful "She", or "She-who-must-be-obeyed". In this work, Rider Haggard developed the conventions of the Lost World sub-genre, which many later authors emulated.
[Source: Australian Variety Theatre Archive]
