Allan S Wife Annotated

Allan's Wife is a collection of Allan Quatermain stories by H. Rider Haggard, first published in London by Spencer Blackett in December 1889. The title story was new, with its first publication intended for the collection.

It may be remembered that in the last pages of his diary, written just before his death, Allan Quatermain makes allusion to his long dead wife, stating that he has written of her fully elsewhere. When his death was known, his papers were handed to myself as his literary executor. Among them I found two manuscripts, of which the following is one. The other is simply a record of events wherein Mr. Quatermain was not personally concerned—a Zulu novel, the story of which was told to him by the hero many years after the tragedy had occurred. But with this we have nothing to do at present. I have often thought (Mr. Quatermain's manuscript begins) that I would set down on paper the events connected with my marriage, and the loss of my most dear wife. Many years have now passed since that event, and to some extent time has softened the old grief, though Heaven knows it is still keen enough. On two or three occasions I have even begun the record. Once I gave it up because the writing of it depressed me beyond bearing, once because I was suddenly called away upon a journey, and the third time because a Kaffir boy found my manuscript convenient for lighting the kitchen fire.

Excerpt from Allan's Wife This is all that I remember about the Christmas-tree at the Hall.. What happened afterwards is lost to me, but to this day in my sleep I often see little Stella's sweet face and the stare of terror in her dark eves as the fire ran up_ her arm. This, however, is not wonderful, for I had, humanly speaking, saved the life of her who was destined to be my wife. The next event which I can recall clearly is that my mother and three brothers all fell ill of fever, owing, as I afterwards learned, to the poisoning of our well by some evil-minded person, who threw a dead sheep into it. It must have been while they were ill that Squire Carson came one day to the Vicarage. The weather was still cold, for there was a fire in the study, and I sat before the fire writing letters on a piece of paper with a pencil, while my father walked up and down the room talking to himself. Afterwards I knew that he was praying for the lives of his wife and children. Presently a servant came to the door and said that some one wanted to see him. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Size: 6" x 9" inch Cover: Soft, matte cover Great size to carry everywhere in your bag, for work, high school, college Makes a great Christmas, birthday, graduation or beginning of the school year gift for Women and Girls