ODNB Life of the Day - Amelia Edwards!
In 1873 Amelia Edwards and Lucy Renshawe, dissatisfied with the weather
in central France, set off for Egypt. It was a journey that changed the
course of her life. She became so fascinated with Egypt that it
dominated her thinking and her work for the next two decades. With other
tourists whom they had met in Cairo the two women hired a dahabiyah
and sailed to Wadi Halfa, accompanying friends met on the crossing from
Italy. While at Abu Simbel the party discovered, excavated, and
described in detail a previously unknown small temple with a painted
chamber. Amelia Edwards and Lucy Renshawe also visited Syria, crossed
the Lebanese ranges to Damascus and Baalbek, and travelled on to
Constantinople (Amelia B. Edwards MS 546). On her return to England she
read extensively about ancient Egypt and consulted such specialists as
Dr Samuel Birch and R. S. Poole on matters of historical and
archaeological detail. She was also ‘led step by step to the study of
hieroglyphical writing’ (Edwards, A Thousand Miles, xiii). With this knowledge and her own experiences she wrote her very successful A Thousand Miles up the Nile
(1876), illustrated from her watercolours. Praised by reviewers for its
‘brilliant descriptions of scenery and the exactness of its
information’ (Bristol Mercury, 16 April 1892) and as ‘a delightful, gossiping book’ (The World,
6 Feb 1877), it is still recognized as ‘one of the great classics of
the history of the Nile’ (Crewe). She regarded it as the most important
of her books and the one for which she hoped to be remembered (Amelia
B. Edwards MS 477).
descensus Averno facilis est