Portraits of
She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed
part II

Usually when an illustrator fails to capture any sense of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, it's from mistaking her for a softcore porn goddess or B-movie actress & make-up queen. But Ayesha as generic sword & sorcery amazon equally misunderstands the character!

Still, it's nice that the Pulp Fictions publishing line has made a few old lost race novels available in trade paperback editions. And perhaps the trite portrait on this 1999 edition will attract a new, juvenile readership used to busty comic book heroines who tramp about half-naked dandling weightless broadswords. Kids've gotta start somewhere reading real books!

Regnery Publishing's Gateway Movie Classics Series has been doing "movie tie-in editions" for old films, including She & King Solomon's Mines.

The 1935 version of She starred the great stage actress Helen Gahahan who truly captured the mysteriousness & power of Ayesha. This powerful role provided Gahahan with her only film performance, as she afterward became a US congresswoman! Randolph Scott costarred as Leo Vincey. All the film versions of She will be found listed in the H. Rider Haggard Filmography along with all other films based on Rider's works.

The 1965 film version of She starred Ursula Andress in golden costume shown on this video release box. A gushing advertisement for this film runs in part:

This is the Hodder & Stoughton "Yellow Jacket" edition (circa 1950) showing Ayesha before her throne, a simple, elegant image of beauty & power. These were affordable editions for the masses, & the lowbrow text on the inner flap of the dustwrapper is charmingly direct: "There are three books which make other tales of African adventure seem small beer. They are all Rider Haggard's: King Solomon's Mines, She and Allan Quatermain." The text on the back, equally for the beer crowd, comes close to implying the book is some kind of amazon mud-wrestling match with a horny guy the women's prize:

"She is a story of the strangest love triangle ever chronicled. The man of the triangle is a mortal man. The women are symbols of fiercely opposed emotions. One represents power, passion & beauty. The other, contributive & constructive, represents fireside, home, & most important of all . . . love. The conflict between the two women is brilliant, & the story is one of Rider Haggard's greatest."