She
core novel 1887 The Ayesha Series
Record
| First published | 1887 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.56 (14,461 ratings, collected 2026-08-26) |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780199536429 |
| Internal chronology | 1 |
Synopsis
She follows Cambridge professor Horace Holly and his young ward Leo Vincey, who journey to a remote African kingdom after Leo's dying father entrusts Holly with a locked iron box containing an ancient relic, the Sherd of Amenartas. The sherd recounts a two-thousand-year-old tragedy in which the immortal sorceress Ayesha killed Leo's ancestor Kallikrates out of jealousy, and charges his descendants with avenging him. Following the sherd's instructions, the two men sail into Africa, survive a shipwreck, and are captured by the Amahagger people, who are ruled by a mysterious veiled white queen known as She-who-must-be-obeyed. She is revealed to be Ayesha herself, still alive after two millennia and convinced that Leo is the reincarnation of her lost lover, setting the stage for the confrontation between ancient obsession and the unsuspecting travelers who have stumbled into her domain.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Ayesha Series
- Series: The Ayesha Series core; position 1 of 4 in the series' recorded order
- Author: H. Rider Haggard
Notes
- From the series record (The Ayesha Series): Four novels published 1887-1923, following the immortal sorceress Ayesha; internal chronology differs from publication order.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series The Ayesha Series: position 1 of 4: next Ayesha, the Return of She (1905)
- Internal chronology, within The Ayesha Series: position 1 of 4: next She and Allan (1921)
Sources
- Ayesha (novel) encyclopedic entry (general reference encyclopedia)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She_(novel)
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