HAGGARD, H. Rider.

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She: A History of Adventure. First English edition, with an autograph letter signed by the author addressing accusations that Pierre Benoit had plagiarised his work: "Have you heard of the row about She & L'Atlantide by Benoit … the character of Antea in "A Yellow God" resembles M. Benoit's heroine even more closely than does She".Haggard, who had himself previously been accused of plagiarism, was outraged, writing in his diary that "it is a mere soulless bald précis of my work … I am so disgusted that I cannot go on reading it" (Haggard, p. 198). Haggard claimed that the similarities were not just restricted to She, but also resembled passages from The Yellow God: An Idol of Africa (1908): "an excellent prototype of M. Benoit's great scene of the mummified lovers is to be found in a chapter of that romance called 'The Hall of the Dead'". Benoit sued for libel, claiming that as he could not read English he could not have read Haggard's work. He however lost the case.Haggard wrote She at remarkable speed, during an intense period of creativity which also produced King Solomon's Mines, Allan Quatermain, and Jess. He began writing in February 1886 and finished less than six weeks later, on 18 March; he recalled the blistering writing process in his memoir, The Days of My Life (1926). "It was written at white heat, almost without rest, and that is the best way to compose... And it came - it came faster than my poor aching hand could set it down." Delivering the finished manuscrip

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