Egypt Under The Pharaohs. A History Derived Entiely from The Monuments By Heinrich Brugsch-Bey. A New Edition Condensed And Thoroughly Revised By M. Brodrick. with Maps, Plans, And Illustrations.

London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1891 .. First edition with an interesting provenance. 8vo. 23cm x 15cm x 4cm. pp.28/pp.469/pp.28 Original black cloth covered boards. Gilt image of a Pharaoh to the front board and gilt titles an decoration to the spine. Boards and spine lightly rubbed. Hinges and edges carefully strengthened. Loose letter signed by R. F. Bigg-Wither. Half title soiled with two gift inscriptions: " Wm. H de Vere Coles from his Grandmother Jane Cole May 5th. 1893." ; "To W. C. D. Esdaile signed H. de Vere Coles." Clean text throughout, complete with all illustrations and maps. A very good book with an interesting provenance! Loosely inserted letter reads: "M Naville has been excavating the Northern half of the temple of Der el Bahare at Luxor. He has found 2 ebony doors covered with beautiful hieroglyphs & cartouches: also the funeral chamber of Totmes I (father of Queen hatasu) and in front of the funeral chamber a great altar of limestone 13ft 2in square8 feet high with steps leading up to it. - NB The doors & the altar are unique finds. - He expects to find the mummy of Totmes I & possiby of Queen Hatasu. R. F. Bigg-Wither" ** "Henri �douard Naville (14 June 1844 � 17 October 1926) was a Swiss archaeologist, Egyptologist and Biblical scholar.The first excavator of the Egypt Exploration Fund. In the 1890s he excavated at the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahri where he was assisted by David George Hogarth, Somers Clarke and Howard Carter. In 1903-06 he returned to Deir el-Bahri to excavate the Mortuary Temple of Mentuhotep II, assisted by Henry Hall. In 1910 he worked in the royal necropolis at Abydos and his last excavation work was in the Osireion at Abydos which was left incomplete at the start of World War I." - See Wikipedia *** "William Clement Drake Esdaile, English barrister and founding secretary of conservationist group The New Forest Association. Esdaile's sister-in-law was Eliza Ianthe Esdaile, n�e Shelley, daughter of Percy Bysshe Shelley and his first wife, Harriet. To H. Buxton Forman, bibliographer and forger." - See: New York Library Manuscripts and archives. **** "William Horace de Vere Cole (5 May 1881, Ballincurrig, Co. Cork, Ireland � 25 February 1936, Paris, France) was an eccentric prankster and poet born in Ireland, which was then part of the United Kingdom. His best known trick was the Dreadnought Hoax on 7 February 1910 when he fooled the captain of the Royal Navy warship HMS Dreadnought into taking Cole and a group of his friends, including Virginia Woolf, for an Abyssinian delegation. As an undergraduate at Cambridge University, Cole had posed as the Sultan of Zanzibar � who was visiting London at the time � to make an official visit to his own college accompanied by his friend Adrian Stephen (the brother of Virginia Woolf). With his mane of hair and bristling moustache, Cole was often confused with British prime minister Ramsay Macdonald, causing dismay in public when he launched into a fierce attack on Labour Party policy. His own sister Annie married Neville Chamberlain. Following the Sultan of Zanzibar prank, Cole executed a series of bold jokes and escapades principally aimed at deflating pompous figures of authority. His targets included members of parliament, city businessmen and naval officers. On one occasion he directed a group of like minded friends dressed as workmen as they dug a trench across Piccadilly. On another, Cole dared an old schoolfriend from Eton, the newly elected Member of Parliament for Ramsey in Huntingdonshire, Oliver Locker-Lampson, to dash before him on a London street to the nearest corner with a 10-yard head start � having already slipped his gold watch into the MP's pocket. As soon as Locker-Lampson began to pull ahead, Cole yelled "Stop thief!" and a policeman promptly detained Locker-Lampson. Cole then explained that it was all a joke and both men were told to proceed on their way quietly. Unfortunately, Cole then began waving his stick around in a dangerous manner as though conducting an imaginary band and both men were then arrested and taken into custody. While no charge was brought against Locker-Lampson, Cole was found guilty of a breach of the peace and fined �5. According to legend, Cole once hosted a party in which the attendees discovered that they all had the word "bottom" in their surnames. On his honeymoon in Italy in 1919, Cole dropped horse manure onto Venice's Piazza San Marco � a city with no horses that could be reached only by boat. Once heir to a great fortune, Cole married twice and died in poverty in France.2 - See Wikipedia . ***** "Heinrich Karl Brugsch (also Brugsch-Pasha or Brugsch-Bey) (18 February 1827 � 9 September 1894) was a German Egyptologist. He was associated with Auguste Mariette in his excavations at Memphis. He became director of the School of Egyptology at Cairo, producing numerous very valuable works and pioneering the decipherment of Demotic, the simplified script of the later Egyptian periods. " - See Wikipedia. ****** "Dr. Mary (May) Brodrick F.R.G.S. (1858 � 13 July 1933) was a British archaeologist and Egyptologist who was one of the first female excavators in Egypt. She persisted in her studies despite the initial opposition of her tutors and fellow students and achieved distinction in her field. The Daily Mail described her in 1906 as "perhaps the greatest lady Egyptologist of the day" - See wikipedia ******* "Reginald Fitzhugh Bigg-Wither (1842-1929) Rector of Worting 1879-1898; Rural Dean of Basingstoke, 1890-1893; Rector of Wonston, 1898.