Smallpox decimates a small English town in H. Rider Haggard's tragic propagandistic novel Dr. Therne. In fact, the novelist cites DT as “my only novel with a purpose" because it "deals with the matter of the Anti-Vaccination craze—not, it may be thought, a very promising topic for romance. I was led to treat of it, however, by the dreadful things I had seen and knew of the ravages of smallpox in Mexico and elsewhere, and the fear, not yet realised, that they should repeat themselves in this country” (Haggard II: 139-140). Haggard dedicated DT to the Jenner Society, founded in 1897 and named in honor of vaccination’s discoverer, Dr. Edward Jenner (1749-1823). On 17 December 1898 the medical periodical The Lancet reviewed DT, labelling it a “grim story … intended to stimulate the unintelligent and to enlighten the uneducated parents who are ready to gamble with the lives of their children and neighbours by taking advantage of the ‘conscientious objection’ clause of the new Vaccination Act” (1640).

DT was first published by Longmans, Green and Co., London, on 28 November 1898. 10,000 copies printed. Longmans, Green, and Co., New York, published the 1st US edition the same year. In 1899 Tauchnitz of Leipzig published a copyright edition. The periodical The Dawn of the Day ran a serial of DT from January 1900 to December 1900 that was accompanied by 36 illustrations (three per monthly issue) by W. S. Stacey. George Newnes, London, published an edition in 1903 titled Doctor Therne, Anti-Vaccinist. 200,000 copies issued. P. F. Collier & Son, New York, published a volume combining DT with Haggard’s Mr. Meeson’s Will (1888), which included a frontispiece for DT illustrated by T. D. Art Walker.

Further Reading

Haggard, H. Rider. The Days of My Life, An Autobiography. 2 Vols. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1926.

Pocock, Tom. Rider Haggard and the Lost Empire. London: Weidenfeld and Nicoloson, 1993. 109.

"Review and Notices of Books: Dr. Therne." The Lancet (17 Dec. 1898): 1640-41. Google Books. Web. 19 Mar. 2014.

Whatmore, D.E.. H Rider Haggard: A Bibliography. Westport, CT: Meckler Publishing Co., 1987. F21, 33-35.