Ayesha, the Return of She is a gothic novel by the popular Victorian author H. Rider Haggard, published in 1905, as a sequel to his far more popular and well known novel, She. Its significance was recognized by its republication by the Newcastle Publishing Company as the fourteenth volume of the celebrated Newcastle Forgotten Fantasy Library series in October, 1977.

The preceding novel, She, ended with the escape of Leo Vincey and his companion, Horace Holly, from the interior of Africa after witnessing the death of Ayesha.

Ayesha, a beautiful and apparently immortal woman born centuries ago in ancient Egypt, had waited thousands of years for the reincarnation of her lover Kallikrates, whom she believed she had found in the form of Leo.

Attempting to persuade him to step into the strange volcanic flame that had granted her immortality, so that he too would live forever, she stepped into it herself; but the second time undid all the years that had been suspended for her and she grew old in an instant and died.

Ayesha: the Return of She is set sixteen years later. Horace and Leo are in Tibet, having spent the intervening years traveling the world attempting to find Ayesha, whom Leo believes is still alive in some form.

After many adventures including avalanche, glaciers and cliffs, they arrive in the isolated city of Kaloon. Here the ancient roles begin to play out again with the Khania of Kaloon, Atene, cast as the reincarnation of Amenartas, while Holly is revealed to be the reincarnation of an ancient sage named Noot.

They hear of a mysterious priestess and her retinue who inhabit the nearby mountain; Leo suspects this to be Ayesha though she is referred to as Hes. Meanwhile Atene falls in love with Leo.

Her insane husband looses the death hounds on their trail and they flee to the nearby mountain where they eventually find themselves in the presence of the heavily veiled Ayesha.

Atene comes in force to the mountain and challenges Ayesha to unveil so that Leo may choose between the two of them. Ayesha does so and is revealed as the wizened ancient hag that Leo and Holly last saw in the fires in Africa.

Leo (a gentleman to his core), chooses Ayesha, kissing the crone who regains all her beauty and enchantment. Ayesha also has new powers: she can see things happening far off and can turn iron into gold (using something very like irradiation.