In the Days of My Youth

by Amelia B. Edwards

Sweet secluded shady Saxonholme! I doubt if our whole England contains another hamlet so quaint so picturesquely irregular so thoroughly national in all its rustic characteristics. It lies in a warm hollow environed by hills.

500 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1873

About the author

Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards (1831-1892) was an English novelist, journalist, lady traveller and Egyptologist, born to an Irish mother and a father who had been a British Army officer before becoming a banker. Edwards was educated at home by her mother, showing considerable promise as a writer at a young age. She published her first poem at the age of 7, her first story at age 12. Edwards thereafter proceeded to publish a variety of poetry, stories and articles in a large number of magazines.

Edwards' first full-length novel was My Brother's Wife (1855). Her early novels were well received, but it was Barbara's History (1864), a novel of bigamy, that solidly established her reputation as a novelist. She spent considerable time and effort on their settings and backgrounds, estimating that it took her about two years to complete the researching and writing of each. This painstaking work paid off, her last novel, Lord Brackenbury (1880), emerged as a run-away success which went to 15 editions.

In the winter of 1873–1874, accompanied by several friends, Edwards toured Egypt, discovering a fascination with the land and its cultures, both ancient and modern. Journeying southwards from Cairo in a hired dahabiyeh (manned houseboat), the companions visited Philae and ultimately reached Abu Simbel where they remained for six weeks. During this last period, a member of Edwards' party, the English painter Andrew McCallum, discovered a previously-unknown sanctuary which bore her name for some time afterwards. Having once returned to the UK, Edwards proceeded to write a vivid description of her Nile voyage, publishing the resulting book in 1876 under the title of A Thousand Miles up the Nile. Enhanced with her own hand-drawn illustrations, the travelogue became an immediate bestseller.

Edwards' travels in Egypt had made her aware of the increasing threat directed towards the ancient monuments by tourism and modern development. Determined to stem these threats by the force of public awareness and scientific endeavour, Edwards became a tireless public advocate for the research and preservation of the ancient monuments and, in 1882, co-founded the Egypt Exploration Fund (now the Egypt Exploration Society) with Reginald Stuart Poole, curator of the Department of Coins and Medals at the British Museum. Edwards was to serve as joint Honorary Secretary of the Fund until her death some 14 years later.

With the aims of advancing the Fund's work, Edwards largely abandoned her other literary work to concentrate solely on Egyptology. In this field she contributed to the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, to the American supplement of that work, and to the Standard Dictionary. As part of her efforts Edwards embarked on an ambitious lecture tour of the United States in the period 1889–1890. The content of these lectures was later published under the title Pharaohs, Fellahs, and Explorer (1891).

Amelia Edwards died at Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, on the 15 April 1892, bequeathing her collection of Egyptian antiquities and her library to University College London, together with a sum of £2,500 to found an Edwards Chair of Egyptology. She was buried in St Mary's Church Henbury, Bristol,

Wikipedia: Amelia B. Edwards

Reviews

[Perry Whitford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basil Arbuthnot looks back on his student days in the exciting Paris of the mid-19th century, taking us on a vibrant tour of its many streets and establishments, such as the Moulin Rouge, the Cafe Procope, the Quartier Latin, the Opéra Comique, the Petit Lazary and the Palais Royal.

Along the way he learns his first lessons in love as a cavaliere servente to deceitful society madam, and has a failed fling with a pretty but unsophisticated grisette. Then he experiences the real thing.

This is such a lively, detailed and realistic look at a year in the life of a male medical student that I can hardly believe that it was written by a woman. It's not exactly scurrilous, but the narrative is certainly less romanticised than similar novels being churned out by men at that time.

Basil is a likable host through the old city, though something of a bystander as a character. Fortunately he makes friends with some really entertaining people, especially Franz Müller, struggling painter and master of the practical joke.

Amedlia B. Edwards was an influential Egyptologist, co-founder of the Egypt Exploration Society. You can find plenty of information online about the work she did there supporting Flinders Petrie and the like, but very little about her work as a novelist.

If In the Days of My Youth is anything to go on, that's unfair to her abilities as a writer. She seems to be remembered more for her ghost stories, and when this novel started out with the appearance of a traveling conjurer, having never read anything by her before I wondered where the story was going to go.

As it turned out, the title said it all, this is a fictional memoir of those halcyon days of youth, enlivened by an attractive cast and an accurate portrayal of a lost Paris that Balzac and Voltaire would have known, a place where penury never got in the way of pleasure.

[Bettie]

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