Over the past few years, as my interest in the works of H. Rider Haggard has increased—”exploded” might be a better term—I have occasionally run into mentions of “The H. Rider Haggard Project”. From what I could tell, this mysterious endeavor had privately commissioned several Haggard-related paintings from first-rank artists back around the year 2000.

My internet searches really didn't provide anymore info than narrowing down the participant artists. All I've ever found--until now--regarding the project is that Michael Whelan, Jeffrey Jones, Stephen Hickman and Bob Eggleton had all done paintings for it. I asked around social media and discovered that I actually knew more about the Project than anyone I was asking.

Enter Robert R. Barrett. Robert is one of the grand old men of American SFF art collecting. He's also, predictably, a fan of the Good Old Stuff, which is one reason why he has the original Frazetta cover painting for The Mucker hanging in his house...which Frank gave to him for services rendered. Yeah, Mr. Barrett has paid his dues and knows his SFF business.

Anyway, the other day, Mr. Barrett posted--out in the wilds of social media--Stephen Hickman's painting for Haggard’s Nada the Lily. When asked about its provenance, he had this to say:

"The collector who commissioned it was a Haggard fan with a Haggard room. He had several well-known illustrators do paintings for his room, i.e. Jeff Jones, Michael Whelan, etc. A few years ago he decided to give it all up and sold all of his books and paintings."

In that one post, Robert cleared up most of the mystery surrounding the shadowy "H. Rider Haggard Project". This wasn't some consortium of HRH fans pooling their resources. Nor was it some sort of community/municipal/publicly-funded project honoring Haggard. It was one man who really, really loved the fiction of H. Rider Haggard and had the funds to commission some truly great work from several of the best artists of the last half-century.

Why did this anonymous HRH fan--Mr. Barrett is adamant about not naming the person in question--decide to give it all up and sell his Haggard-related books and art? We may never know. What we do know is the man responsible for the Project did all Haggard fans an incredible service by privately commissioning those paintings.

As I've pointed out elsewhere, Haggard has not been all that well-served, artistically, the last fifty years. None of the major book publishers enlisted the likes of Frazetta or Whelan to paint book covers for new editions of Haggard's fiction. Most of the Haggard covers in the last few decades--with the notable exception of the Zebra editions--have been inept, dowdy or boring. Usually, some combination of all three. Can anyone argue that such subpar art has helped the public profile of Haggard and his fiction?

The existence of The H. Rider Haggard Project makes me think of how cool it would be if the best Haggard-related paintings were used for a set of HRH volumes called, for want of a better term, "The Criterion Collection". One could use several of the Ken Barr, Esteban Maroto and Darrell K. Sweet covers from the '70s. Don Maitz has done a great painting for King Solomon's Mines. Ken Kelly has also done a great She/Ayesha painting. Add in the four paintings from the Project and we're in business. Commission a few more paintings from the likes of Joe Jusko, Christopher Shy, Greg Staples, Simon Bisley and Gary Gianni and we're rollin' like a boss. 

H. Rider Haggard deserves nothing less. 

Scroll down to see the paintings commissioned for The H. Rider Haggard Project, along with my commentary.