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Zusatztext Here is a topic with a variety of themes, some farcical, some darkly serious, some complex, and others which are beyond silly. It takes a particular skill to balance such a range of ideas, and Roger Luckhurst possesses this skill. Informationen zum Autor Roger Luckhurst has written and broadcast widely on popular culture, specialising in science fiction and the Gothic. He is interested in the odd spaces between science and popular supernatural beliefs. He has previously written a history of how the notion of 'telepathy' emerged in the late Victorian period, and has published editions of Jekyll and Hyde and Dracula. He is also a regular radio reviewer of terrible science fiction films. He teaches horror and the occasional respectable novel by Henry James at Birkbeck College, University of London. Klappentext In the winter of 1922-23 archaeologist Howard Carter and his wealthy patron George Herbert, the Fifth Earl of Carnarvon, sensationally opened the tomb of Tutenkhamen. Six weeks later Herbert, the sponsor of the expedition, died in Egypt. The popular press went wild with rumours of a curse on those who disturbed the Pharaoh's rest and for years followed every twist and turn of the fate of the men who had been involved in the historic discovery. Long dismissed by Egyptologists, the mummy's curse remains a part of popular supernatural belief. Roger Luckhurst explores why the myth has captured the British imagination across the centuries, and how it has impacted on popular culture. Zusammenfassung A quirky history that offers a new way of understanding the myth of the mummy's curse. Roger Luckhurst provides a startling path through the cultural history of Victorian England and its colonial possessions. Inhaltsverzeichnis PART ONE: CURSE STORIES 1: King Tut and the dead Earl Opening the Tomb First Interpretations 2: Precursor Stories I: Thomas Douglas Murray and 22542 (The Unlucky Mummy) 3: Precursor Stories II: Walter Ingram and the Coffin of Nesmin PART TWO: CONTEXTS 4: Egypt in London I: Immersive-Exotic Spaces The Egyptian Hall, Belzoni's Tomb and Mummy Pettigrew The Exotic Panorama and the Theatrical Extravaganza Bazaars, West End Shopping, and Exotic Consumption 5: Egypt in London II: The Exhibitionary Universe Egypt at the World's Fairs The British Museum in the Empire of Shadows 6: The Curse Tale and the Egyptian Gothic Learning to Curse Plagues, Scarabs, and the Nuclear Option: The Golden Age of Egyptian Curse Stories The Museum Gothic Algernon Blackwood: Egypt Introjected 7: Rider Haggard Among the Mummies Rider Haggard's Encounters with Egypt Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew Haggard and Major E. Arthur Haggard in Egypt Rider Haggard's Artefactual Fictions 8: Evil Eyes, Punitive Currents and the Late Victorian Magic Revival Late Victorian Hermeticism: Blavatsky's Theosophical Society The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn: Haute Magie and Low Comedy Magical Thinking and Curse Logic Closing in: The Evil Eye Looks Back Afterword ...
