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Aeneas Press edition Edwardian

Maiwa's Revenge

Or, The War of the Little Hand

by H. Rider Haggard 1856–1925

The book, and the century it came out of.

Quatermain tells a hunting club how he was hired by Maiwa, a chief’s daughter, to make war on the man who had her child killed — an elephant hunt, a stockade, and a small campaign fought with borrowed rifles. Haggard went to South Africa at nineteen and helped raise the Union Jack over the Transvaal; this short 1888 book is the tightest thing he wrote, and the elephant hunting is from life. Illustrated with 30 full-page plates — paintings by Charlemont, Whitford and Gérôme among them.

It may be well to state that the incident of the “Thing that bites” recorded in this tale is not an effort of the imagination.
The first sentence of Maiwa's Revenge
A note on this edition

Maiwa's Revenge, by H. Rider Haggard, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.

It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.

The edition
Format
Ebook
Extent
about 104 pages
Reading time
about 2 hours
Illustrations
Full-page plates, credited
Text
Complete, unabridged
Language
en
This edition
2026
ISBN
9785486520204
The plates

30 paintings are bound into this edition

Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.

The Moorish Chief, Eduard Charlemont
The Moorish Chief Eduard Charlemont 1878
The Shore of the Turquoise Sea, Albert Bierstadt
The Shore of the Turquoise Sea Albert Bierstadt 1878
Étienne Dujardin-Beaumetz - A la baïonnette, Henri-Charles-Etienne Dujardin-Beaumetz
Étienne Dujardin-Beaumetz - A la baïonnette Henri-Charles-Etienne Dujardin-Beaumetz 1877
Ships off the Coast of Iceland, Carl Frederik Sørensen
Ships off the Coast of Iceland Carl Frederik Sørensen 1878
Landscape, Eugène Baudouin
Landscape Eugène Baudouin 1878
The Yacht ‘Pearl’, James Edward Rogers
The Yacht ‘Pearl’ James Edward Rogers 1878
The setting

A page from this edition

Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.

A page of Maiwa's Revenge as set for this edition
The opening of a chapter
A page of Maiwa's Revenge as set for this edition
A page where a plate falls

Both photographed from the finished volume.

Colophon

Maiwa's Revenge, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the Adventure & the Sea shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.

Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785486520204, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.

Before you buy

Questions readers ask

Is this the whole of Maiwa's Revenge?
Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
What exactly did you change?
The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. H. Rider Haggard's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
Are the pictures really in the book?
Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
How long is it?
About 104 pages, which is roughly about 2 hours of reading.
What do I actually get?
An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
If this one suits you
Maiwa's Revenge
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