Episode 9: Five Early Literary Stories that Established the Mummy in Popular Culture

Ii-wey! An enlightened philosophy swept across Europe in the closing years of the 18^thcentury. Interest in Egypt had gathered steam in France due to the belief that it was the seat of western civilization. For Napoleon Bonaparte, he saw an opportunity to undertake a military campaign because the Ottoman Empire’s hold on Egypt as a province had weakened and it could lead to undermining Britain’s control and access to India. Amongst his 50,000 soldiers and sailors, almost 170 scientists and scholars were engaged to open a canal and map Egypt. A year after their arrival, the Rosetta Stone was discovered by Pierre-Francois-Xavier Bouchard, kicking off a race to decipher the hieroglyphs. In addition, the artifacts and temples discovered were documented in the multiple volume Description de l’Egypte published between 1809 and 1821, leading to a fascination with all things ancient Egypt (Egyptology). 

Adventurers, treasure-seekers and individuals genuinely interested in study and understanding the ancient culture of Egypt flooded the desert country throughout the 1800s. The discovery of mummies as early as 1817 (Ramses I) and mummy caches by mid-century, fueled interest in mummies and mummification. The private and public mummy unwrapping parties and exhibitions dazzled attendees and influenced interest for decades to come. Beautifully illustrated travel journals shared the country’s mystique with readers, and mummy-oriented fiction stories started to appear, further expanding interest while entertaining readers. Why are these important? These stories allowed 19^th century writers to explore the mummy as hero, love interest and villain, and they would come to provide source material for early mummy films, which in turn, inspired our 20^th century mummy writers. 

One: Mummy as Advisor

Jane Webb Loudon’s The Mummy: A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century (1827) is credited with a number of firsts: the earliest mummy story written in English, the first mummy to be revived by electricity, and to include a curse. The storytells the tale of a revived Pharaoh Cheops, who provides advice on life and politics for those who befriend him. The story takes a futuristic slant.

Two: Mummy as Living Historian

Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “Some Words With a Mummy” (1845) is set around an unwrapping party that was in vogue at the time. Poe used electricity to revive his sophisticated mummy, who politely explains to the uninformed narrator (Poe) that the ancient Egyptians were an advanced civilization, being on par with the modern era. And, other than the initial scare of a revived mummy in one’s parlor, this story takes dark humorous tone. 

Three: Mummy as Love Interest

Théophile Gautier introduced a romantic element – the love across the ages – when an Egyptologist falls in love with the memory of an Egyptian queen in The Romance of the Mummy (1858). Gautier follows up with The Mummy’s Foot (1863) and is the first story with supernatural elements. In the tale, the narrator purchases a preserved mummy’s foot and during a dream, he is transported to ancient Egypt where he falls for an Egyptian princess – it’s her foot that the narrator purchased. The female is a benevolent mummy and the story touches on the theme of love between a living and undead being.

Four: Mummy Seeking Death

Sherlock Holmes’ Arthur Conan Doyle wrote two influential mummy stories. The first was “The Ring of Thoth” published in 1890. An Egyptologist falls asleep in the Louvre and when he awakes in the locked museum later that evening, he meets Sosra, a 3,500-year-old priest of Osiris. Sosra’s ancient lover is on exhibit and was buried with a ring that contains an antidote to the immortality elixir he took in ancient times. His lover died before she could take it, so all these millennia, he has been searching for her. A couple of days later, the Egyptologist reads about a man found dead in the arms of the mummy.

Five: Mummy as Slave

In “Lot No. 249” (1892), Doyle uses a narrative structure of a shunned English college student who uses an ancient scroll to command a mummy to do his bidding. This tale is considered one of the first examples of a sinister and menacing mummy and is most often included in mummy anthologies featuring classic literature. 

Although the mummy has not had a definitive literary birth like Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1898) and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), this has led to many mummy interpretations. It makes sense that the mummy’s origins remain ambiguous because mummies exist throughout the world and for a variety of reasons. That said, all of the mummies featured in the five stories above are from ancient Egypt. Obviously, there is a need for more equitable representation amongst mummies in future mummy stories. 

Image from Harper’s Monthly Magazine dated September 1892, by William T. Smedley, for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story “Lot No. 249” (see here)

Senebti!