Egypt: Descriptive, Historical, and Picturesque, Ebers, Georg. Published by Cassell and Company, Ltd., London, Circa 1880. Translated from the original German by Clara Bell; With an Introduction and Notes by S. Birch. Two Volumes. Folio up to 15″ tall. Vol I: XXIV, 327 pp.; Vol. II: xxii, 388 pp. Tissue guarded frontis, full-page wood-engraved plates, and in-text vignettes. Brown cloth boards with pictorial boards stamped in gilt and black to spine and front, all gilt edges, scrolled stamped borders to rear boards, dark brown endpapers. A set in near fine condition. Light toning, crease to front endpapers in both volumes, an occasional small mark and otherwise contents are in fine condition. Binding is tight and square, gilt remains bright; light edge rubbing to boards; light stain to front board of Volume I.
Part history and part travelogue, Egypt, Descriptive, Historical, and Picturesque, is a fascinating view of Egypt in the late 19th century. The fine wood-engravings are by prominent contemporary artists, chief among them Lawrence Alma Tadema, “the most prolific and skilled of all who worked in [Egyptology]—‘the painter of the Victorian vision of the ancient world” (Clayton, Rediscovery of Ancient Egypt, 178).
Georg Moritz Ebers (1837-1898), prolific German novelist and Egyptologist, is best known for his discovery and publication of the Egyptian Medical Papyrus, one of the oldest Egyptian medical documents in the world.
