She (1887) (edit title/settings)

A Cambridge professor, Horace Holly, and his ward, Leo Vincey, together with their servant, Job, travel to Africa, following instructions on the "Sherd of Amenartas", left to Leo by his biological father. The journey takes them into an unexplored part of the African interior, where they discover the lost kingdom of Kôr, inhabited by the primitive Amahagger people. The Englishmen learn that the natives are ruled by a fearsome white queen, who is worshiped as Hiya or She. The white-skinned interlopers are a source of great interest to the Amahagger, with the elder Billali deciding that he must report their arrival to She. In his absence, some of the Amahagger determine to eat the white-men as part of a ritual "hotpot". There is a scuffle and Leo is wounded in the fray, but the three Englishmen are saved when Billali returns, who declares that they are under the protection of She-who-must-be-obeyed. However, Leo's injuries worsen and he approaches death.

They are taken to the home of She, which lies under a dormant volcano amongst a series of cavernous tombs. There, Holly is presented to the mysterious queen, a white sorceress named Ayesha, whose beauty is so great that it enchants any man who beholds it. She, who is veiled and lies behind a partition, warns Holly that the power of her splendour arises both desire and fear, but he is dubious. When she shows herself, however, Holly is enraptured and prostrates himself before her. He learns that She has lived in the realm of Kôr for over two millenia, awaiting the reincarnated return of her lover, Kallikrates (whom she had accidently slain in a fit of jealous rage). After she veils herself again, Holly remembers Leo and begs Ayesha to visit his ward. She agrees, but is startled upon seeing Leo, believing him to be the reincarnation of Kallikrates that she has so long awaited.

She heals Leo, but becomes angry at the attentions paid him by the girl, Ustane. The latter refused and is struck down by She. Despite the murder of their friend, Holly and Leo cannot free themselves from the power of She's beauty. In the climax of the novel, Ayesha takes the two men to see the pillar of fire. She wants Leo to bathe in it as she did so that he can become immortal and remain with her forever. His doubts about its safety lead her to step into the flames once more. However, with this second immersion she reverts to her true age and immediately withers and dies. Before dying she tells Vincey, "I die not. I shall come again."

Throughout the book Haggard explores the themes of power, life, death, reincarnation, sexuality, and fate.

In the original novel, Ayesha is to a great extent selfish and amoral, caring very little for the feelings or even the lives of others so long as she gets what she wants. However, it is evident that, in the course of writing the novel, Haggard moved away from a purer conception of feminine evil. Indeed, one sees the process of transition fossilized in this sentence from the chapter entitled “Ayesha Unveils”:

I have heard of the beauty of celestial beings, now I saw it; only this beauty, with all its awful loveliness and purity, was evil — at least, at the time, it struck me as evil.
In the sequel Ayesha (1905) and in prequels She and Allan (1921) and Wisdom's Daughter (1923), Haggard attempted to vindicate her character, and she comes more to resemble the elder Irene of George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie.

The title is short for "She Who Must Be Obeyed", a translation of the Arabic honorific used for Ayesha by the Amahagger, a tribe whom she has enslaved. In childhood, Haggard's nursemaid used to menace him with an ugly doll which went by the name "she who must be obeyed".

The Norse Death goddess is called Hela and the name was later used by Rider Haggard in his two "Viking" novels, Eric Brighteyes (1891) and The Wanderer's Necklace (1914). The mythological Hela had an allegorical "deathbed" called Kör that means "disease" in Old Norse. In She, Ayesha lives in a city named Kôr that had its original inhabitants decimated by a terrible "plague", and its vast catacombs serve as a giant deathbed.

The name of Haggard's mother was Ella Doveton, and "ella" is Spanish for "she", also resembling "Hela".

There is indication that Haggard knew some words of Spanish or Portuguese (both the languages have the word "ella" with the same meaning), there are several relevant Portuguese characters in his books. Portugal was the first colonizer of the African lands to which Rider Haggard travelled and in these nations there are many inhabitants that speak that language even today (see Portuguese-South Africans).

The character was supposedly inspired by the Balobedu Rain Queen Masalanabo Modjadji. Jung, who admired Haggard's myth-making powers, used She to illustrate his concept of the anima.

Her true name "Ayesha" is a variant transcription of the Arabic word pronounced Aisha, meaning "she-who-lives" . This was also the name of the wife of Prophet Muhammad.

Also the "correct" pronunciation of Ayesha, indicated by Haggard himself, alludes to Asha that is a close parallel to the Goddess of Truth that was worshipped in Kôr and which is compared with Ayesha and her elusive nature in the books.

This book was translated into Urdu in the early 20th century by Munshi Muhammad Khalilur Rehman, a noted scholar, under the title "Azra" and was published from Lahore. It became a big best-seller and is still being printed from Lahore. The sequel was also translated by the same scholar under the title "Azra ki wapsi". Although the translation was not quite impressive, but later in 1972-73 it was translated by Mazhar-ul-Haq-Alvi, a well-known Author from Ahmedabad, India under the title "Ayesha", "Ayesha ki Wapsi" and "Ayesha-o-Allan" which was a greatly notified work and the translation was highly appreciated. Also he was well known for his translations for Haggard's complete works.