The People of the Mist

The People of the Mist is a classic lost race fantasy novel written by H. Rider Haggard.

This is the tale of a British adventurer seeking wealth in the wilds of Africa, finding romance, and discovering a lost race and its monstrous god.

The penniless Leonard Outram attempts to redress the undeserved loss of his family estates and his fiancee by seeking his fortune in Africa. In the course of his adventures, he and his Zulu companion Otter save a young Portuguese woman, Juanna Rodd, together with her nursemaid Soa, from slavery. Leonard and Juanna are plainly attracted to each other, but prone to bickering, and their romance is impeded by the watchful and jealous Soa.

The protagonists seek the legendary People of the Mist, said to possess a fabulous hoard of jewels. On finding them, they immediately become embroiled in the turbulent political affairs of the lost race, which is driven by a power-struggle between its king and the priests of its giant crocodile god. The heroic Outram can do little more than react to events. The action climaxes in a hair-raising escape by “tobogganing” a large flat stone down a steep glacier.

The People of the Mist was first published serially in the weekly magazine Tit-Bits, between December 1893 and August 1894; the first edition in book form was published in 1894. E-Book: ePUB, 146,400 words, average reading time 12 hours, 10 min. Unabridged full version. Also available as audiobook read by Richard Kilmer, running time 16 hours, 20 min.

Sir Henry Rider Haggard (1856-1925) was an English writer of adventure novels set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and a founder of the Lost World literary genre. Haggard's stories are still widely read today. Haggard's Lost World genre influenced popular American pulp writers such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, Talbot Mundy, Philip José Farmer, and Abraham Merritt.

Allan Quatermain, the adventure hero of King Solomon's Mines and its sequel Allan Quatermain, was a template for the American character Indiana Jones, featured in the films Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Quatermain has gained recent popularity thanks to being a main character in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.