Child of Storm - Paperback

by Cassell (Photographer), Henry Rider Haggard (Author)

The story takes place against the real life struggle between Cetshwayo and Umbelazi, the two sons of the Zulu king Mpande. The events culminate in the Battle of Ndondakusuka in 1856. Real life people such as Panda, Cetshwayo, and John Robert Dunn appear as characters.

Author Biography

Henry Rider Haggard was born at Bradenham, Norfolk, to Sir William Meybohm Rider Haggard, a barrister, and Ella Doveton, an author and poet. He was the eighth of ten children. He was initially sent to Garsington Rectory in Oxfordshire to study under the Reverend H.J. Graham but, unlike his older brothers who graduated from various Public Schools, he ended up attending Ipswich Grammar School. This was because his father, who 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, which in the end he never sat. Instead Haggard's father sent him to Africa in an unpaid position as assistant to the secretary to the Lieutenant-Governor of Natal, Sir Henry Bulwer. It was in this role that Haggard was present in Pretoria for the official announcement of the British annexation of the Boer Republic of the Transvaal.