Tale
Popular Stories of Ancient Egypt
Les Contes populaires de l'Égypte ancienne
Anonymous · 1881
Synopsis
The collection brings together, translated and annotated, about twenty stories from ancient Egypt. In the Tale of the Two Brothers, Anoupou's wife falsely accuses her young brother-in-law Baîti, who flees and goes through a series of metamorphoses. King Khoufou's sons vie with one another in telling stories of magicians; a shipwrecked man is cast up on an island; a robbed peasant pleads his case; a prince is born under an ill-fated prediction. To these are added the cycles of Sâtni-Khâmoîs and of Ramesses II.
Context
The collection appeared in 1881 from Maisonneuve, in a series devoted to popular literatures, and Gaston Maspero, holder since 1874 of Champollion's chair at the Collège de France and director of the Antiquities Service, revised it three times up to the fourth edition, in 1911. According to Indiana University, it was the first anthology in volume form of the tales of ancient Egypt. A. S. Johns gave an English translation of it in 1915, and Hasan El-Shamy a scholarly edition in 2004.
Who it is for
A long introduction followed by tales that are often incomplete, to be read in paperback in the 2016 French edition.
Prizes and reception
The first anthology of Pharaonic tales, reissued in France for over a century and translated into English.
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