"Molly Youngkin draws on a remarkably varied range of Victorian and Edwardian woman writers to demonstrate how Egypt-both as ancient empire or modern imperial holding-was never distant from their notions of feminist liberation. Through careful attention to literary detail and allusion, this innovative book explores the previously unexamined connections between the imaginings of colonial British writers and the political possibilities explored by postcolonial Egyptian novelists and poets still writing today." - Neil Hultgren, Associate Professor of English, California State University, Long Beach, USA, and author of Melodramatic Imperial Writing: From the Sepoy Rebellion to Cecil Rhodes "This book offers a timely and important contribution to a growing body of work analyzing the contact between British women writers and so-called 'antique' cultures. Her work is successful in undertaking a complex framework that brings together discussions of imperialism and women's writing within the specific context of Egypt. This monograph offers essential reading for scholars interested in Victorian culture and antiquity, as well as those working on the history of women's writing." - Churnjeet Mahn, Chancellor's Fellow, University of Strathclyde, UK and author of British Women's Travel to Greece, 1840-1914: Travels in the Palimpsest

Focusing on British women writers' knowledge of ancient Egypt, Youngkin shows the oftentimes limited but pervasive representations of ancient Egyptian women in their written and visual works. Images of Hathor, Isis, and Cleopatra influenced how British writers such as George Eliot and Edith Cooper came to represent female emancipation.