Twinning Rider Haggard’s Ayesha and Joseph Conrad’s Kurtz
Twinning Rider Haggard’s Ayesha and Joseph Conrad’s Kurtz

Summary/Abstract: Circumstantial evidence counts as hard fact in the attempt to understand what infl uenced Joseph Conrad’s works. Twenty-seven years ago Allan Hunter boldly argued that Conrad’s Heart of Darkness was, owing to many similar passages and phrases, strongly influenced by Rider Haggard’s She. To date, Hunter’s argument has been left unevaluated. This essay highlights similarities between the two antiheroes Kurtz and Ayesha in order to add circumstantial evidence to Hunter’s stated, but relatively unexplored view. This essay does not attempt to prove a direct infl uence, ut hopes to show that engaging with this specifi c question of infl uence is worthwhile

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