Egypt Through the Eyes of Travellers (Astene Publications)

This is the final volume of three books containing papers from the ASTENE conference at Cambridge in 1999. The theme of this title is the 18th and 19th Century European fascination with Egypt. This interest had begun during the Enlightenment and was fuelled by the invasion of Egypt by Napoleon in 1798. For many Europeans of this age, Egypt represented all the exoticism, sensuality and mystery of the Orient, and these nine papers (one of which is in French) seek to explore this relationship. Contents: A public pageant in 1806: Lord Valentia visits Egypt (Deborah Manley); Berths under the Highest Stars: Henry William Beechey in Egypt 1816-1819 (Patricia Usick); Florence Nightingale's Letters from Egypt (Loubna Youssef); Preparing to be an Egyptologist: Amelia Edwards before 1873 (Joan Rees); Rameses III, Giovanni Belzoni and the Mysterious Reverend Browne (Penelope Wilson); A House, a museum and a legend: Bait al-Kretliya (The Gayer-Anderson Mummy) (Iain Gordon Brown); Silent travellers, articulate mummies: 'Mummy Pettigrew' and the Discourse of the Dead (Sahar Sobhi Abdel-Hakim); Les detours fictionnels du recit de voyage: Le Nil, Egypte et Nubie de Maxime du Camp (Veronique Magri-Mourges).