She: A History of Adventure - Legacy

Legacy

She is one of the most influential novels in modern literature, with authors like Rudyard Kipling, Henry Miller, Graham Greene, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Margaret Atwood all acknowledging the importance of the work to their own and others' writing. With over 83 million copies sold, the work is one of the biggest selling fictional titles of all time and has been translated into 44 languages. According to Stauffer, "She has always been Rider Haggard's most popular and influential novel, challenged only by King Solomon's Mines in this regard". Such was the popularity and influence of the novel that it was cited in the psychoanalytical theories of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, the latter describing the character of She as a manifestation of the anima figure.

The story is one of the most important texts of imaginative literature and had a lasting impact on the fantasy genre, directly giving rise to the 'lost civilisation' tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and the creation of mythologised locations such as Shangri-la. Tolkien recognised the importance of She to his own fantasy works, especially in its foregrounding of a fictional history and narrative. The figure of She is also considered by many scholars to be a formative influence on Galadriel and other characters in Tolkien's Legendarium, such as Shelob (who is referred to as "She" and "Her" in the text). Indeed, Haggard's characterisation of Ayesha became the prototype of the female antagonist in modern fantasy literature, most famously realised in the figure of the White Witch, Jadis, from C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia.