The Essential Guide to Mummy Literature

by Brian J. Frost

Few historical relics have exerted such a hold on our imaginations as the mummy. In 1834, Thomas J. Pettigrew's A History of Egyptian Mummies was the first scholarly work wholly devoted to the subject, providing, for its time, a remarkable analysis of the different mummification techniques used by the ancient embalmers. Such volumes of serious nonfiction have been supplemented over the years by additional works, both scholarly and otherwise, as well as works of fiction that incorporate and expand upon mummy lore. Indeed, the popular concept of the mummy as a malevolent monster dates back to the nineteenth century, when stories about mummies rising from the dead to terrify the living first captured the imagination of the reading public and set the revivified corpse on the path to becoming a major horror icon.

In The Essential Guide to Mummy Literature, Brian J. Frost provides the first in-depth survey and bibliography of works of fiction featuring mummies. In this comprehensive volume, Frost traces the development of the mummy story, paying particular attention to works by Victorian authors and pulp fiction writers, as well as stories from the American pulp magazines. The annotated bibliography provides synopses of all the key works of fiction in the mummy canon, as well as others not so well known. Full publication details for each entry, with plot summaries of more than 500 works of fiction and abridged descriptions of 250 nonfiction books, are provided. Additionally, a filmography is included, along with listings of young adult novels, children's storybooks, and reference works for both adults and children. Well-organized and comprehensive, The Essential Guide to Mummy Literature will appeal to devotees of the horror genre and students of popular literature, as well as researchers and librarians.

248 pages, Hardcover

First published December 28, 2007

Reviews

[Norbit Roche · Rating 3 out of 5]

Invaluable for discovering stories, but I found it highly flawed in its execution. Granted, the wealth of knowledge would be quite the undertaking to synopsize equally, but the disproportional contrast in entries is a bit off-putting, ranging from terse, almost apathetic entries like, "Tale of a mummy back to life.", to verbose, multiple revealing paragraphs describing the entire plot of a story, twists and all. And, I know some of these stories can be quite rare, having only been published in magazines nigh one-hundred years old now, hence some of the succinct descriptions possibly based only on the immediate knowledge at-hand, but from the way the author writes, he clearly goes to excessive lengths with more popular tales that he enjoyed, describing every major plot point until the spoiled end.

It's just a confusing read, being that I'd consider anyone to check out a mummy reference book, especially one MSRP priced at $100, to be a fairly niche reader, so to spoil said stories in excessive detail is quite perplexing.