Egypt

Egypt has every ingredient to intrigue the traveller and stimulate the writer. An "antique land" littered with remains of ancient dynasties, its landscape offers a startling contrast between the green valley of the Nile and the desert to either side, while Cairo is packed with colourful images. Chrisptopher Pick has selected British, American and European visitors' writing of the last two centuries. As the 19th century progresses the roll-call of familiar names accumulates: Chateaubriand, Disraeli, Kinglake, Flaubert, Lear, Holman Hunt, Lucie Duff Gordon, Amelia Edwards. And there is no falling off in the 20th century: E.M. Forster, Vita Sackville-West, Lawrence Durrell, Freya Stark, Howard Carter and Flinders Petrie. Christopher Pick has uncovered delightful passages from more obscure visitors as well; artists, archaeologists, pro-Consuls and British soldiery both in the last war and in the years before the Suez Affair in 1956.
Rather than arrange the extracts chronologically, he takes us on a geographical progress through the country; it is a journey which will both enhance the view from a deckchair on a Nile tourist boat and slip a magic carpet under the most foursquare of armchairs back home.