Writing the Sphinx: Literature, Culture and Egyptology

The book explores literary and Egyptological cultures from the late 19th to early 20th centuries, analyzing canonical literature and lesser-known works, combining literary criticism with book history, science, and reception studies, and shedding light on the textual, cultural, and material exchanges between literature, Egyptology, and visual and material culture during this period.

Format: Hardback
Length: 272 pages
Publication date: 30 November 2020
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Unearths a rich tradition of creative flexibility, collaboration, and mutual influence between literary culture and Egyptology. The first monograph study to bring literature into conversation with Egyptological culture, Incorporates a number of archival primary sources which have, until now, escaped critical attention. Analyses canonical literature alongside works by lesser-known authors. Combines literary criticism with book history, the history of science, and reception studies. This book explores literary and Egyptological cultures from the closing decades of the nineteenth century to the opening decades of the twentieth, culminating in the aftermath of the high-profile discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922. Analysing the works of Egyptologists including Howard Carter, Arthur Weigall and E. A. Wallis Budge alongside those of their literary contemporaries such as H. Rider Haggard, Marie Corelli and Oscar Wilde, it investigates the textual, cultural and material exchanges between literature, Egyptology and visual and material culture across this period.

Weight: 568g
Dimension: 163 x 240 x 27 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781474476249