[Illustration: A STUDY CORNER] 'Oh, have you read 'Dawn'? It is a first-rate novel; I have just finished it.' Somebody explained, and the subject dropped, but I was not a little gratified by the unintended compliment. These facts encouraged me, and I wrote a second novel--'The Witch's Head.' This book I endeavoured to publish serially by posting the MS. to the editors of various magazines for their consideration. But in those days there were no literary agents or Authors' Societies to help young writers with their experience and advice, and the bulky manuscript always came back to my hand like a boomerang, till at length I wearied of the attempt. Of course I sent to the wrong people; afterwards the editor of a leading monthly told me that he would have been delighted to run the book had it fallen into the hands of his firm. In the end, as in the case of 'Dawn,' I published 'The Witch's Head' in three volumes. Its reception astonished me, for I did not think so well of the book as I had done of its predecessor. In that view, by the way, the public has borne out my judgment, for to this day three copies of 'Dawn' are absorbed for every two of 'The Witch's Head,' a proportion that has never varied since the two works appeared in one-volume form. 'The Witch's Head' was very well reviewed; indeed, in one or two cases, the notices were almost enthusiastic, most of all when they dealt with the African part of the book, which I had inserted as padding, the fight between Jeremy and the Boer giant being singled out for especial praise. Whatever it may lack, one merit this novel has, however, that was overlooked by all the reviewers. Omitting the fictitious incidents introduced for the purposes of the story, it contains an accurate account of the great disaster inflicted upon our troops by the Zulus at Isandhlwana. I was in the country at the time of the massacre, and heard its story from the lips of survivors; also, in writing of it, I studied the official reports in the blue books and the minutes of the court martial. [Illustration: MR. RIDER HAGGARD]