Book review – “Mysteries of the Libyan Desert” by W.J. Harding King
William Joseph Harding-King was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. His first journey into the Sahara took place in 1900, after which he published his book In Search of the Masked Tawareks. He returned to the Sahara again in 1908 and then again between 1909 to 1912. His contributions to a number of journals represented a significant contribution of knowledge to desert studies and he was awarded the Gill Memorial Memorial Medal by the Royal Geographical Society in 1919. Mysteries of the Libyan Desert was considered to be his most important book. [more…]
Edition - March, 2014
Book Review: “Another Egypt” by Bill Dixon
Bill Dixon’s book reads like a series of short excerpts from the travel journal of a lively, jocular and convivial man who enjoys observing his travelling companions just as much as he does the lovely surrounding landscape, and has the skill to convey his impressions very effectively. [more…]
Photographing the Past – The Gaddis Legacy
By Kate Gingell. Published on In Brief, Egyptological, 20th March 2014 During my many visits to Luxor I have always visited the Gaddis Bookshop to browse through all the old photographs and cameras. Until my last visit in November 2013 I did not know the history of the shop nor the story behind the […] [more…]
By Kate Gingell
Marianne Brocklehurst and the West Park Museum, Macclesfield – Part 1
Marianne Brocklehurst was the daughter of a wealthy Victorian silk manufacturer (figure 1). On the one hand she was, by all accounts, charming, bright, and full of curiosity, with a love of travel and history. She was articulate, an engaging writer and a talented painter and cartoonist. But although her portraits show a beautiful face, Marianne had side to her that was far from angelic side to her. Travelling to Egypt in the early 1870s she became a self-confessed amateur smuggler, enthusiastically joining in with the popular pastime of purchasing black-market objects to take home. [more…]
Book Review: Grand Hotels of Egypt in the Golden Age of Travel
Grand Hotels of Egypt is essentially a book about the influx of western visitors into Egypt after Napoleon had departed and Anglo-American style infrastructure had arrived in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Using contemporary accounts and photographs, cartoons and some remarkable marketing material in full colour, Andrew Humphreys explores the role of the grand hotels of the day in the constant swirl of people as they experienced Egypt’s towns and cities. [more…]