Fictional character
Allan Quatermain is the protagonist of H. Rider Haggard's 1885 novel "King Solomon's Mines", its one sequel "Allan Quatermain" (1887), twelve prequel novels and four prequel short stories, totalling eighteen works. An English professional big game hunter and adventurer, in film and television he has been portrayed by Richard Chamberlain, Sean Connery, Cedric Hardwicke, Patrick Swayze and Stewart Granger among others.
History.
The character Quatermain is an English-born professional big game hunter and occasional trader living in South Africa. An outdoorsman who finds English cities and climate unbearable, he prefers to spend most of his life in Africa, where he grew up under the care of his widower father, a Christian missionary.
In the earliest-written novels, native Africans refer to Quatermain as "Macumazahn", meaning "Watcher-by-Night," a reference to his nocturnal habits and keen instincts. In later-written novels, Macumazahn is said to be a short form of "Macumazana", meaning "One who stands out." Quatermain is frequently accompanied by his native servant, the Hottentot Hans, a wise and caring family retainer from his youth. His sarcastic comments offer a sharp critique of European conventions. In his final adventures, Quatermain is joined by two British companions, Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good of the Royal Navy, and by his Zulu friend Umslopogaas.
Appearance and character.
The series spans 50 years of Quatermain's life, from 18 to 68; at the start of the foundation novel "King Solomon's Mines" he has just turned 55, giving him a birthdate of 1830. Physically, he is small, wiry, and unattractive, with a beard and short hair that sticks up. His one skill is his marksmanship, where he has no equal. Quatermain is aware that as a professional hunter, he has helped to destroy his beloved wild free places of Africa. In old age he hunts without pleasure, having no other means of making a living.
About Quatermain's family, little is written. He lives at Durban, in Natal, South Africa. He marries twice, but is quickly widowed both times. He entrusts the printing of memoirs in the series to his son Harry, whose death he mourns in the opening of the novel "Allan Quatermain." Harry Quatermain is a medical student who dies of smallpox while working in a hospital. Haggard did not write the Quatermain novels in chronological order, and made errors with some details. Quatermain's birth, age at the time of his marriages, and age at the time of his death cannot be reconciled to the apparent date of Harry's birth and age at death.
Series.
Composition.
Haggard wrote fourteen novels and four short stories featuring Quatermain, beginning with "King Solomon's Mines" (1885). From 1885 to 1889 he wrote four of the novels and three of the short stories, including "King Solomon's Mines" and its sequel "Allan Quatermain" (1887). Haggard wrote this sequel in the summer of 1885, immediately after producing "King Solomon's Mines", but "Allan Quatermain" was only published two years later in 1887. The other Quatermain stories from this period are "Hunter Quatermain's Story" (1885), "Long Odds" (1886), "A Tale of Three Lions" (1887), "Maiwa's Revenge" (1888), and "Allan's Wife and Other Tales" (1889). The latter book collected the previous short stories as well as a new novelette. After the publication of "Allan's Wife", Haggard abandoned the Quatermain series for two decades. Then, from around April to August 1909, Haggard wrote "Child of Storm", originally intending it to be a stand-alone Quatermain novel. However, during or after its composition, Haggard decided to make "Child of Storm" the second part of a trilogy of new Quatermain books, beginning with "Marie", published in 1912. "Marie" was the first new Quatermain story for twenty-three years. It was followed by a short story, "Magepa the Buck" (1912), and then by "Child of Storm" (1913), published four years after its composition in mid-1909. Haggard continued to write more Quatermain stories until his death in 1925; the final two books in the series, "The Treasure of the Lake" (1926) and "Allan and the Ice-Gods" (1927), were published posthumously.
Subdivisions.
Although some of Haggard's Quatermain novels stand alone, there are a few important sub-series. In the Zulu trilogy, "Marie" (1912), "Child of Storm" (1913), and "Finished" (1917), Quatermain becomes ensnared in the vengeance of Zikali, the dwarf wizard known as "the-thing-that-should-never-have-been-born" and "Opener-of-Roads." Zikali plots and finally achieves the overthrow of the Zulu royal House of Senzangakona, founded by Chaka and ending under Cetewayo (Cetshwayo kaMpande) (Haggard's spelling of Zulu names is used in the first instance, with the currently used versions in brackets).
These novels are prequels to the foundation pair, "King Solomon's Mines" (1885) and "Allan Quatermain" (1887), which describe Quatermain's discovery of vast wealth, his discontent with a life of ease, and his return to Africa following the death of his son Harry.
"The Holy Flower" (1915) paved the way for a trilogy of Quatermain books involving the "Taduki" drug, which induces clairvoyance and visions: "The Ivory Child" (1916), "The Ancient Allan" (1920), and "Allan and the Ice-Gods" (1927). The latter two books involve Quatermain experiencing his past lives through the use of "Taduki".
With "She and Allan" (1921), Haggard engineered a crossover between his two most popular series, uniting Quatermain with Ayesha, the central character of his hugely successful ' novels, and bringing in several other key characters from each series—Hans, Umslopogaas, and Zikali from the Quatermain series, and Billali, Ayesha's faithful minister. This book formed the third part of the "She" trilogy, although in chronological terms, it necessarily served as a prequel to the first two "She" books, since Allan Quatermain's meeting with Ayesha in "She and Allan" is implied to be before the discovery of Kôr by Ludwig Horace Holly and Leo Vincey as narrated in ', the first Ayesha book.
Summaries of the stories.
"King Solomon's Mines" (1885) 
A sixty-year-old Allan Quatermain travels with two fellow Englishmen (Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good) through a remote region of southern Africa with the aim of locating Curtis' missing brother and the lost diamond mines of King Solomon. They cross plains, deserts and mountain ranges on their quest. Quatermain, Curtis and Good reach the lost kingdom of Kukuanaland, inhabited by a warlike race related to the Zulus, and find themselves involved in a bloody struggle for the Kukuana throne.
"Hunter Quatermain's Story" (1885)
At a dinner-party in Yorkshire, Quatermain recounts a memorable encounter with a buffalo he once had on a South African hunting expedition. The short story features Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good as minor characters. It also includes a character called the Hottentot Hans, but this is not the same Hottentot Hans who appeared in "Marie" (1912) and its sequels.
"Long Odds" (1886)
Quatermain describes how a lion mauled his leg on a hunting expedition. This event is referenced in "King Solomon's Mines" and other stories several times.
"Allan Quatermain: An Account of His Further Adventures and Discoveries in Company with Sir Henry Curtis, Bart., Commander John Good, R.N., and One Umslopogaas" (1887) 
Three years after the events of "King Solomon's Mines", Quatermain, Curtis and Good return to Africa to locate a "great white race" hidden in the heart of the Dark Continent. They travel with Umslopogaas, the mighty Zulu warrior, and find the lost world of Zu-Vendis, inhabited by a race of sun-worshippers possibly descended from ancient Persians or Phoenicians. Chronologically this is the last of the Quatermain stories, although it was published early on; Haggard did not write the stories in chronological order. 
"A Tale of Three Lions" (1887)
In the third of the four Allan Quatermain short stories, Quatermain and his son Harry prospect for gold and seek revenge for their faithful servant Jim-Jim after he is killed by a lion.
"Maiwa's Revenge; or, The War of the Little Hand" (1888)
Quatermain aids the African queen Maiwa in a war of vengeance after her infant son is murdered. 
"Allan's Wife" (1889)
This novella tells the story of Allan Quatermain's youth in Africa, and of his marriage to Stella Carson. The story involves Quatermain's father, as well as the Zulu character Indaba-zimbi and the evil baboon-woman Hendrika. Hendrika is conjectured to have influenced Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli and Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan. While this is speculation, Kipling acknowledged that Haggard's "Nada the Lily" (1892) was vital in his creation of Mowgli.
"Marie: An Episode in the Life of the Late Allan Quatermain" (1912)
After a twenty-three-year hiatus during which no new Quatermain stories were published, the hunter returned in "Marie", which describes his love for Marie Marais, a Boer woman, as well as his involvement in events in Zulu history. "Marie" was the first book in the Zulu Trilogy and introduced the Hottentot Hans, who was Quatermain's companion in five further books: "The Holy Flower" (1915), "The Ivory Child" (1916), "She and Allan" (1921), "Heu-Heu; or, The Monster" (1924), and "The Treasure of the Lake" (1926).
"Magepa the Buck" (1912)
In the final short story, Quatermain recounts the bravery of the titular Zulu character, who undertook an admirable feat of endurance to save the life of a child. "Magepa the Buck" was collected in the 1921 Haggard book "Smith and the Pharaohs".
"Child of Storm" (1913)
In this book, the sequel to "Marie" and second volume in the Zulu Trilogy, Allan Quatermain becomes involved in the political rivalries between the Zulu princes. The book introduced Zikali, the Zulu dwarf-wizard first mentioned in "Marie".
"The Holy Flower" (1915)
Quatermain and Hans travel with the Zulu Mavovo and the young British collector Stephen Somers in quest of a giant orchid worshipped by a lost race called the Pongo. The book involves battles with Arab slave-traders, cannibalism, occultism, and a huge gorilla-god.
"The Ivory Child" (1916)
In the sequel to "The Holy Flower", Allan Quatermain meets Lord George Ragnall and his beautiful "fiancée", Luna Holmes, but the latter is kidnapped by the wizard Harût while in Egypt. Quatermain, Hans, Ragnall and his servant Savage reach the lost world of Kendahland, Harût's homeland, to rescue Lady Ragnall. The two Kendah tribes are at war, as one faction worships "the Child," an idol representing the Egyptian god Horus, and the other faction sacrifices to Jana, a giant prehistoric elephant or god who Harût says is the same entity as the Egyptian Set and the Abrahamic Satan. "The Ivory Child" is the first book in the series to involve the "Taduki" drug, a mystical herb which induces clairvoyant visions. (Robert E. Howard, who admired Haggard's work, later referenced this drug in one of his own early fragments.)
"Finished" (1917)
In the final part of the Zulu Trilogy, Zikali wreaks revenge on the royal Zulu house. The book is during the Zulu War of 1879, and includes Allan Quatermain as a fighter at Isandhlwana.
"The Ancient Allan" (1920)
In the sequel to "The Ivory Child", Allan Quatermain and Lady Luna Ragnall take the "Taduki" drug and witness previous incarnations of themselves as well as of other characters from the series (the Hottentot Hans, Lord Ragnall, Harût and Jana) in Egypt under Achaemenid Persian rule. Along with its sequel "Allan and the Ice-Gods", this is the only book in the Allan Quatermain series not to be set in nineteenth century Africa.
"She and Allan" (1921)
Quatermain, Hans, Umslopogaas and a Scotsman by the name of Robertson travel to Kôr, where they meet Ayesha from Haggard's ' (1887) and its sequel ' (1905). The book features a gripping battle between Umslopogaas and the demon Rezu, as well as philosophical discussions between Allan and Ayesha, and a journey made by Allan and Umslopogaas to the land of the dead. Haggard wrote one more Ayesha book, "Wisdom's Daughter: The Life and Love Story of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed" (1923), but it did not feature Quatermain.
"Heu-Heu; or, The Monster" (1924)
In "Heu-Heu", Allan and Hans encounter a grotesque cave-painting in southern Africa depicting a fiendish gorilla-monster called Heu-Heu. Zikali then sends the pair to Heuheualand, the home of Heu-Heu, to obtain a powerful drug he claims to be even stronger than "Taduki", and to rescue the daughter of a lost race's chief from being sacrificed to Heu-Heu.
"The Treasure of the Lake" (1926)
In this posthumously published Quatermain adventure, Allan and Hans travel with a strange sorcerer called Kaneke to Mone-land. This strange lost world is located in the crater of a volcano and is inhabited by the Dabanda people (the nation to whom Kaneke himself belongs), who have attained to high mystical powers and who worship a goddess living on an island in Lake Mone. Allan and Hans meet an Englishman called John Taurus Arkle, who