Rider Haggard is remembered as the author of adventure novels, which shocked and fascinated not only Victorian and Edwardian Britain, but the world. Films of his books - notable King Solomon's Mines and She have been made, but Haggard, a Norfolk squire, saw his writing only as an amusing and lucrative pastime. The other Haggard, statesman and creator of a world of fact is explored in this book. His imagination was held by the reality of the British Empire and its future rather than the lost civilizations of his literary fantasies.