Marie Audiobook By H. Rider Haggard cover art

Marie

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Marie

By: H. Rider Haggard
Narrated by: Shelly Frasier
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Allan Quatermain, hero of King Solomon's mines, tells a moving tale of his first wife, the Dutch-born Marie Marais, and the adventures that were linked to her beautiful, tragic history. This moving story depicts the tumultuous political era of the 1830s, involving the Boers, French colonists and the Zulu tribe in the Cape colony of South Africa. Hate and suspicion run high between the home government and the Dutch subjects.

Allan accompanies the ill-fated Pieter Retief and the Boer Commision on an embassy to the Zulu despot, Dingaan. Villains attempt to kill Allan and rob him of his wife. The unfortunate mission ends in a blood-curdling massacre. Written at a time when slavery was widespread, Marie portrays characters and views reflective of its era.

©2001 Tantor Media, Inc. (P)2001 Tantor Media, Inc. Suspense Thriller & Suspense Africa Marriage

Editorial reviews

Allan Quatermain may be British born, but that doesn't stop him from loving Marie Marais, a Boer maiden in South Africa. Nor does it stop her from returning his love, although their marriage ends in tragedy born of racial hatred. Shelly Frasier transitions easily among British, French, Dutch, and American accents in her sober performance of this classic, sometimes within the scope of the same character. While this occasionally leads to confusion, her thoughtful narration of the sad and frustrating story keeps the listener riveted from one distressing scene to the next. While the cultural disputes of 1830s Africa seem insurmountable, Frasier's compassionate portrayal of Haggard's text makes the listener yearn for a peaceful solution.
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This is one of the best Allan Quatermain books. If you enjoyed King Solomon's Mines, you we definitely enjoy this book. The narration is very good.

One of Haggard's Best

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I've read King's Solomon's Mines and Allan Quartermain twice, via the audiobooks performed by BJ Harrison (please check out his Classic Tales Podcast!) I've become such a fan of both BJ's and HRH's, and wanting to read more of the series (BJ only does the first two), I looked on audible and found Marie by Shelly Frasier. I was wary at first of hearing Quartermain delivered in a different voice, and by a difference gender, but I was pleasantly surprised at Ms. Frasier's narration. Her voice is clear and unobtrusive; none of the characters overperformed (though perhaps sometimes underperformed), but skillfully and thoughtfully capturing the emotional, dramatic and even comedic moments of the story. I liked her accents (some said they got confused by them enough that it turned them off the book...*shrug* not sure what to say to those people.) I was a little worried this "love story" would be a departure from the adventure in the first two books, but from the outset the story was riveting. I loved learning about Allan's early years and his beginnings with the zulus. I look forward to reading more of this series and eventually circling back to King Solomon's Mines and Allan Quartermain which, although written first, are chronologically the last of Allan's adventures.

Highly recommend!

Can't skip this if you like HRH

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A cool story about a famous character in historical fiction. Allan Quartermane is famous and has appeared in books and movies. This prequel was a good listen. We can see the foundations of adventure fiction.

Historical Historical Fiction

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Alan Quarrtermain King Solomon's Mines and just about any Victorian adventure novel,, I was a little bit taken aback by the choice of a female narrator Orso swashbuckling a hero. And although I enjoyed the book, it was clearly an after thought by the author who, having run out of adventure, decided to try a little romance. For those Alan Quartermaine fans who prefer his tough guy sidekicks and rampaging battles, this is not the first choice

As a huge fan of

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The entire written book is narrated by a MAN, Allen Quartermain, yet the producers chose a female to narrate it. It’s very confusing and she doesn’t even try to evoke a man’s voice when speaking male dialogue or narration. Nor does she evoke any sense of tribal African-ness when speaking the parts of the Zulu or the Hottentots, but has them speaking eloquent, feminized, British English. Again, very confusing. So in that light, the production and narration of this book were terrible, and it makes me wonder of “wokeness” was a factor, not wanting to stereotype African dialects and to have a female reading a largely male narrative. Very poor taste, and its quite a shame because this is a very moving, powerful, novel, an excellent piece of literature, superior to H R Haggard’s more famous King Solomon’s Mines. It deserves better. I’ll make a note of this narrator and avoid all her works.

Poor narrator choice

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The first part of the saga of Allan Quartermain is so loaded with racism and colonialism, both explicit and implicit, as to derail an otherwise mediocre tale filled with baffling behavior on the part of nearly every character to keep the plot lumbering along...

Has not aged well...

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The narrator switches between British/French/Dutch/American accents for the same character and sometimes even in a single sentence! This is very strange and makes it highly confusing to understand which character is speaking, since the same character switches between four different accents. I could not listen to more than a couple of chapters of this book, as a result.

Confusing narration!

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