The period 1870 to 1900 saw both a vast expansion of the British Empire and the ‘Scramble for Africa’, in which competing European powers sought to claim and control territories treated as unknown, mysterious, or simply ‘up for grabs’. 

The brutal realities of such expansionism remain an unresolved legacy, yet the literary imagination of the time transformed these regions into stages for fantastic adventure, populated by exotic peoples, lost kingdoms and ancient cultures. The Imperial Romance became a popular literary genre, with H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines (1885) one of its definitive examples. 

Its central conceit – treasure or marvels discovered through exploration of a remote region – has older roots in legends of Timbuktu, El Dorado and other cities of gold.

Image: Map showing the way to Kukuanaland in H. Rider Haggard's 'King Solomon's Mines' (1885) Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons