The Mummy's Curse

The True History of a Dark Fantasy

Roger Luckhurst

• Investigates the roots of the myth of the mummy's curse in British culture uncovering lesser known curse stories
• Considers theatres, newspapers, and literature to explore how fascination with the myth of the mummy's curse infiltrated British culture
• Includes previously unseen material from diverse archives including the British Museum, the Wellcome Institute, and the Harry Price Library of Psychical Research
• Provides new insight into the lives and work of literary figures including Arthur Conan Doyle, Rider Haggard, and Algernon Blackwood

The Mummy's Curse

The True History of a Dark Fantasy

Roger Luckhurst

Description

The Mummy's Curse

The True History of a Dark Fantasy

Roger Luckhurst

Table of Contents

The Mummy's Curse

The True History of a Dark Fantasy

Roger Luckhurst

Author Information

The Mummy's Curse

The True History of a Dark Fantasy

Roger Luckhurst

From Our Blog

Halloween with the Ghost Club

By Roger Luckhurst As Lisa Morton notes in her excellent Trick or Treat? A History of Halloween (2013), our annual festival of spooks is a typical result of messy history and cultural confusion. It entered modern English culture as a misunderstanding of the three-day Celtic new year celebration in Ireland, which started at sunset on the 31st of October, to mark summer's end.

Posted on October 31, 2013

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Tut's tomb: 90 years of doom

By Roger Luckhurst Here we are, in the middle of the ninetieth anniversary of one of the most famous news stories of the twentieth century: the opening of the lost tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings. On the 6^th of November 1922, after seven years of fruitless searching, the excavator Howard Carter sent a short telegram to his paymaster, the Fifth Earl of Carnarvon

Posted on February 16, 2013

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Tutankhamun and the mummy's curse

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 Tutankhamun. 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. We spoke with Roger Luckhurst, author of The Mummy's Curse: The true history of a dark fantasy, to find out why the myth has captured imagination across the centuries, and how it has impacted on popular culture.

Posted on October 4, 2012

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Downton Abbey and the Curse of King Tut

By Roger Luckhurst You must surely have been tempted on occasion to curse Julian Fellowes, if not for the script of Young Victoria, then for the creation of Downton Abbey, that death star of good old-fashioned aristocratic virtue and due deference. For a little while, all public debate seemed to be sucked through the funnel of Downton discourse, coinciding as it did with the election of all those shiny Eton boys to government in 2010. But don't worry: he may already be cursed.

Posted on June 21, 2012

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The Mummy's Curse

The True History of a Dark Fantasy

Roger Luckhurst

Author Interview