A return, in many ways, to its late Victorian origins, this volume in the Quatermain series seems to relish in adventure and fantasy for their own sake. At the same time, Haggard also returns to a sense of Victorian morality, especially as regards the issues of killing and justice. Odd, because the book first appeared in serial form just before the carnage of the First World War. In the book format, it was published during the war, in 1915. So here we have a work reaching back into the last century to find its bearings. Even more so, just a few years later, the Roaring Twenties would blow the doors off their hinges and usher in a cultural shift so radical that the pages Haggard penned, especially about empire, marriage, murder, and law, would come to be seen as quaint and out of place. Lucky for those reading the novel, now, that they can put themselves into two pairs of shoes--those of the readers whose world was about to be upended by World War I and the cultural cacophony that followed and those of the readers nostalgically looking towards the past, as Quatermain himself does in this volume and as the aging Haggard also was no doubt doing.

*One more note. Again, it appears that Haggard is making use of James G. Frazer's The Golden Bough to lace his work with allusions to taboos in place in far away lands. I also wonder if Merian C. Cooper read this book about this time or soon thereafter. Some resemblance to King Kong fills the novel. ( )

SUMMARY: Websters paperbacks take advantage of the fact that classics are frequently assigned readings in English courses. By using a running English-to-French thesaurus at the bottom of each page, this edition of Allan and the Holy Flower by H. Rider Haggard was edited for three audiences. The first includes French-speaking students enrolled in an English Language Program (ELP), an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) program, an English as a Second Language Program (ESL), or in a TOEFL or TOEIC preparation program. The second audience includes English-speaking students enrolled in bilingual education programs or French speakers enrolled in English-speaking schools. The third audience consists of students who are actively building their vocabularies in French in order to take foreign service, translation certification, Advanced Placement (AP) or similar examinations. By using the Webster's French Thesaurus Edition when assigned for an English course, the reader can enrich their vocabulary in anticipation of an examination in French or English.TOEFL, TOEIC, AP and Advanced Placement are trademarks of the Educational Testing Service which has neither reviewed nor endorsed this book. All rights reserved.Websters edition of this classic is organized to expose the reader to a maximum number of difficult and potentially ambiguous English words. Rare or idiosyncratic words and expressions are given lower priority compared to difficult, yet commonly used words. Rather than supply a single translation, many words are translated for a variety of meanings in French, allowing readers to better grasp the ambiguity of English, and avoid them using the notes as a pure translation crutch. Having the readerdecipher a words meaning within context serves to improve vocabulary retention and understanding. Each page covers words not already highlighted on previous pages. If a diffi