TWO WOMEN I WISH I HAD KNOWN

Two women I wish I could have known.  Unrelated, except rhrough Ancient Egypt.

Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards.  (1831 – 1892).  Ms Edwards was a well-heeled Englishwomen who played a vital part in the development of scientific Egyptology.  She already was a writer and illustrator of some note when, in 1871, she made a journey up the Nile, in an old fashioned sailing boat, with a half-dozen companions.  The result was a true literary triumph, A Thousand Miles Up The Nile, published in 1877.  That trip kindled a passion for ancient Egypt in her of such intensity that she went on to found the British Egyptology Association and helped finance the career of Flinders Petrie, the absolute father of scientific Egyptology.  Ms Edwards herself wrote one volume of Egyptian history; sadly, it is dreadful.  However, A Thousand Miles is a masterpiece, which you can read off your tablet for free.

Barbara Mertz.  (1927-2013).  Dr. Mertz earned a Ph.D. degree in Egyptology  from the University of Chicago, then and perhaps now the top school in the field.  However, probably owing to her sex (my guess here) she did not settle down in some quiet academic grove, but rather became a writer of mysteries- and a wonderful one, in my opinion.  Early on she wrote two useful and entertaining nonfiction books on Egyptology:  Red Land, Black Land and Gods, Graves and Hieroglyphics, both still available.  Then she turned to fiction and, Lord, what a flood!  She wrote under several pseudonyms and in several different genres, but the collection I recommend most strongly is her Amelia Peabody series, written under the name of Elizabeth Peters.  There are 20 books in all, each detailing  the adventures of a family of Egyptologists around the turn of the last century.  The stories, all involving crime – usually murder – are fun, but it is the characters that make Ms. Peters tales absolutely sparkle!  If you haven’t met Amelia yet you are in for a treat.

My guess is that the fictional Amelia Peabody Emerson is based, at least loosely, on the very real Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards.   Somewhere, Ms. Peters says that isn’t true, but my doubts remain.

And here is Barbara Mertz