Benita: An African Romance (Classic H. Rider Haggard)Benita: An African Romance (alternatively titled The Spirit of Bambatse) is a novel by H. Rider Haggard.PlotIn an adventure mingling romance and the supernatural, the clairvoyant heroine Benita assists in a hunt for a lost Portuguese treasure buried in the Transvaal...Sir Henry Rider Haggard, KBE, Kt ( 22 June 1856 - 14 May 1925), known as H. Rider Haggard, was an English writer of adventure novels set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and a pioneer of the Lost World literary genre. He was also involved in agricultural reform throughout the British Empire. His stories, situated at the lighter end of Victorian literature, continue to be popular and influential.Early yearsHenry Rider Haggard, generally known as H. Rider Haggard or Rider Haggard, was born at Bradenham, Norfolk, the eighth of ten children, to Sir William Meybohm Rider Haggard, a barrister, and Ella Doveton, an author and poet.His father was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to British parents. Haggard was initially sent to Garsington Rectory in Oxfordshire to study under Reverend H. J. Graham, but unlike his elder brothers who graduated from various private schools, he attended Ipswich Grammar School.This was because, his father, who perhaps regarded him as somebody who was not going to amount to much, could no longer afford to maintain his expensive private education. After failing his army entrance exam, he was sent to a private crammer in London to prepare for the entrance exam for the British Foreign Office, for which he never sat. During his two years in London he came into contact with people interested in the study of psychical phenomena,Benita: An African Romance (Classic H. Rider Haggard)BenitaAn African RomanceBy H. Rider HaggardSir Henry Rider Haggard, KBE (22 June 1856 – 14 May 1925) was an English writer of adventure novels set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and a founder of the Lost World literary genre. He was also involved in agricultural reform throughout the British Empire. His stories, situated at the lighter end of Victorian literature, continue to be popular and influential. Benita - An African Romance An adventurous trader, it is said, hearing the legend of a great treasure buried a party of Portuguese hundreds of years before, as a last resource attempted its discovery by the help of a mesmerist. A child was put into a trance, and gave his mesmerist details of the adventures and death of the unhappy Portuguese men and women. With much other detail, the boy described the burial of the great treasure and its exact situation so accurately that the white man and the mesmerist were able to dig for and find the place "where it had been"Benita: An African Romance (Classic H. Rider Haggard)