One of my favorite books is still one I first read in junior high school, H. Rider Haggard's "She," a romantic adventure tale set in the lost kingdom of Kor in Africa, where the immortal and beautiful sorceress-priestess Ayesha patiently waits thousands of years for the rebirth of her lost lover, Kallikrates.
After a perilous journey, the lover returns, reincarnated as a Britisher named Leo, along with his companion and narrator of the story, Holly. But another woman captures Leo's attention first, and "She-who-must-be-obeyed" takes a terrible vengeance.
Full of steamy romance and mystery, "She" was one of Rider Haggard's most popular books when it first came out in the late 1880s, and the power of its love story made it the subject of movies in the 20th Century, in addition to sequels. It tops "King Solomon's Mines" for the lushness of its attention to detail and writing.
