Description of Egypt

Renowned orientalist Edward Lane’s first and biggest book on Egypt now out in paperback.

The great nineteenth-century British traveler Edward William Lane (1801–76) was the author of a number of highly influential works: An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (1836), his translation of The Thousand and One Nights (1839–41), Selections from the Kur-an (1843), and the Arabic–English Lexicon (1863–93). Yet in 1831, publication of one of his greatest works, Description of Egypt, was delayed, and eventually dropped, mainly for financial reasons, by the publishing firm of John Murray. The manuscript was sold to the British Library by Lane’s widow in 1891, and was salvaged for publication as a hardcover book, in 2000, by Jason Thompson, nearly 170 years after its completion. Now available in paperback, this book, which takes the form of a journey through Egypt from north to south, with descriptions of all the ancient monuments and contemporary life that Lane explored along the way, will be of interest to both ancient and modern historians of Egypt, and is an essential companion to his Manners and Customs.