HAGGARD, SIR HENRY RIDER English novelist, was born at Bradenham Hall, Norfolk. At the time of the first annexation of the Transvaal (1877), he was on the staff of the special commissioner, Sir Theophilus Shepstone, and then be came a master of the High Court there. After the cession of the Transvaal to the Dutch he returned to England and read for the bar. He gained a great popular success with the novels Dawn (1884) ; The Witch's Head (1885), which contains an account of the British defeat at Isandhlwana; King Solomon's Mines (1886), suggested by the Zimbabwe ruins; and She (1887), another fan tastic African story. The scene of Jess (1887) and of Allan Quatermain (1888) was also laid in Africa. A long list of other stories followed. Haggard showed great interest in rural and agri cultural questions, being a practical gardener and farmer on his estate in Norfolk. He dealt with land questions in Rural England (2 vols., 1 90 2) ; the report of an inquiry into colonial land settlement, in The Poor and the Land (19o5), with suggestions for a scheme of national land settlement in Great Britain itself ; and in Rural Denmark and its Lessons (I 91 I) . Haggard was knighted in 1912. He died in London on May 14, 1925.