Ratings46
Average rating3.7
Thirty-one-year-old Victorian gentlewoman Amelia Peabody has not only inherited her father's fortune, but she is also blessed with his strong will as well. Now she's headed for Cairo, accompanied by a girl with a tarnished past, to indulge her passion for Egyptology. Little did she know that murder and a homicidal mummy lay in wait for her.
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The story of Amelia and Emerson is one of my favorites, and this book was the perfect kick off to a glorious adventure! Take a grand adventure in Egypt, and get to know Amelia and Emerson in this first book of the series! You won't be disappointed!
Although Peters had written at least seven unrelated novels before this one, it was here that she finally struck gold. This American author made the mildly audacious decision to write a novel from the viewpoint of a 19th-century Englishwoman, set it mostly in Egypt, and mix in elements of archæology, crime, comedy, and romance. The mixture works remarkably well.
Peters was already an Egyptologist and knew her stuff in that respect. She was accustomed to writing crime stories with a dash of humour. But here she reached a higher level of characterization and humour than she'd achieved before. This story of a resourceful feminist let loose in Egypt in 1884 is truly hilarious and most entertaining, especially from being told in the first person.
It was followed in due course by numerous sequels giving the further adventures of Amelia Peabody and her expanding circle of family, friends, and enemies. The sequels are in general more serious than this first book, giving more emphasis to crime and adventure. However, outbreaks of hilarity continue to occur from time to time. I haven't read the whole series; my mother has, and reports some decline in quality in the later ones.
The Peters imitation of a Victorian-English writing style is quite effective in the first book, but later on she grows less careful and more Americanisms creep in. It must be hard for an American to weed out all of these without using the services of a British editor. For instance, I've noticed that Americans commonly assume the expression freshen up (used about oneself) to be generic English, whereas in fact it's an Americanism, and a relatively recent one: the earliest usage example in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1961.
Elizabeth Peters is a pseudonym for Barbara Mertz (1927–2013).
While the story got a little Scooby-Doo-ish at the end, it's still a very enjoyable book, and I look forward to reading (or listening to) the rest of the series.
Featured Series
18 primary booksAmelia Peabody is a 18-book series with 18 primary works first released in 1975 with contributions by Elizabeth Peters and Joan Hess.