“Out of the dark we came, into the dark we go. Like a storm-driven bird at night we fly out of the Nowhere; for a moment our wings are seen in the light of the fire, and, lo! we are gone again into the Nowhere."

An instant best-seller when it was released in 1885, King Solomon’s Mines is regarded as one of the earliest works of “lost world” fiction in which explorers discover an unknown world full of adventure and mystery. 

In King Solomon’s Mines, adventurer Allan Quatermain sets out on an expedition to find a friend’s brother who was lost while searching for the mines of the biblical King Solomon. The mines are said to hold the riches and treasures of Solomon’s kingdom, a temptation that Quatermain cannot deny. 

The expedition takes Quatermain through dangers encounters with fierce animals, the perils of wilderness, and into mysterious lands with vast armies and hidden kingdoms. 

This novel is full of exciting adventures and examinations of human desires in the face of the uncaring natural world. A long-standing classic with beautiful prose and imagery, King Solomon’s Mines has been adapted many times for film and television, and its themes and plot have informed the adventure and lost-world genres for decades.