The character Quatermain is an English-born professional big game hunter and occasional trader in southern Africa. He supports colonial efforts to spread civilization in the Dark Continent, and he also favours native Africans' having a say in their affairs. Quatermain is an imperial outdoorsman who finds English cities and climate unbearable. He prefers to spend most of his life in Africa, where he grew up under the care of his widower father, a Christian missionary.

Allan Quatermain is a novel by H. Rider Haggard. Haggard wrote the book over his summer holiday in 1885 immediately after King Solomon's Mines. It was first serialised in Longman's Magazine before being published.

Henry Rider Haggard (22 June 1856–14 May 1925) was an English writer of adventure novels set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and a founder of the Lost World literary genre. He was also involved in agricultural reform throughout the British Empire. His stories, situated at the lighter end of Victorian literature, continue to be popular and influential.