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Edward William Lane's “Description of Egypt”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2009

Jason Thompson
Jason Thompson
Affiliation:
Associate Professor in the Department of History, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, Ky. 42101, USA.
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Extract

Few Western students of the Arab world are as well known as the 19th-century British scholar Edward William Lane (1801–76). During his long career, Lane produced a number of highly influential works: An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (1836), a translation of The Thousand and One Nights (1839–41), Selections from the Ḳur-án (1843), and the Arabic–English Lexicon (1863–93). The Arabic–English Lexicon remains a pre-eminent work of its kind, and Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians is still a basic text for both Arab and Western students. Through his published work, Lane contributed substantially to the prevailing Western picture of the Arab world.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , November 1996 , pp. 565 - 583
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

NOTES

Author's note: I acknowledge with gratitude the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, the American Research Center in Egypt, and Western Kentucky University, all of which have supported my overall Edward William Lane project, of which this article is a part. A generous invitation from the Center for Middle East Studies and the British Studies Seminar at the University of Texas at Austin in 1993 initiated the first draft of the article, and the 1993–94 lecture series of the Netherlands' Institute for Archaeology and Arabic Studies in Cairo encouraged further development of it.

1 The major biographies of Lane are: Poole, Stanley Lane, Life of Edward William Lane (London: Williams and Norgate, 1877)Google Scholar; Arberry, A. J., “The Lexicographer: Edward William Lane,” in Oriental Essays: Portraits of Seven Scholars (London: Allen & Unwin, 1960), 87–121Google Scholar; and the definitive one by Ahmed, Leila, Edward W. Lane: A Study of His Life and Works and of British Ideas of the Middle East in the Nineteenth Century (London: Longman, 1978).Google Scholar

2 Thompson, Jason, “‘I Felt Like an Eastern Bridegroom’: Edward William Lane's First Trip to Egypt, 1825–1828,” Turkish Studies Association Bulletin 17 (1993): 138–41.Google Scholar

3 The phenomenon of recurring fascination with ancient Egypt has been described many times, most recently in Curl, James Stevens, Egyptomania: The Egyptian Revival: A Recurring Theme in the History of Taste (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994).Google Scholar

4 Description de l'Égypte: ou recueil des observations et des recherches qui ont été faites en Égypte pendant l'expédition de l'armée française, publié par les ordres de Sa Majesté l'Empereur Napoléon le Grand, 9 vols. text, 10 vols. plates (Paris: Imprimerie de D. L. F. Panckoucke, 1809–1824).Google Scholar For Belzoni, see Mayes, Stanley, The Great Belzoni (London: Putnam, 1959).Google Scholar

5 Manuscript draft of “Description of Egypt,” Lane Collection, Archives, Griffith Institute, Ashmolean Museum (hereafter GIA), fol. 2.

6 Bodleian Library, Department of Western Manuscripts (hereafter Bodl. Lib.), MS. Eng. misc. d. 234, fol. 5–5v.

7 British Library, Department of Manuscripts, Additional Manuscript (hereafter BL Add. MS.) 34080, fol. 184.

8 For these, see Thompson, Jason, Sir Gardner Wilkinson and His Circle (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992)Google Scholar; also my “Osman Effendi: A Scottish Convert to Islam in Early Nineteenth-Century Egypt,” Journal of World History 5 (1994): 99–123.Google Scholar

9 Tillett, Selwyn, Egypt Itself: The Career of Robert Hay, Esquire of Linplum and Nunraw, 1799–1863 (London: SD Books, 1984).Google Scholar

10 Lane to Hay, Robert, 13 05 1839, National Library of Scotland, Department of Manuscripts, MS. 7121, fols. 50–51.Google Scholar

11 The number of “Description of Egypt” drafts makes it desirable to sort them out within one reference. Lane's notes and sketches for the work are in the Archives of the Griffith Institute. The first draft is in the Bodleian Library (Bodl. Lib., MS. Eng. misc. d. 234), the second is in the Archives of the Griffith Institute, and the third and final draft is in the British Library (BL Add. MS. 34080–88).

12 Lane to Murray, John III, copy, 12 01 1836, letter no. 75, GIA.Google Scholar

13 The full revised title, as it reads in BL Add. MS. 34080, fol. 1: “Notes and views in Egypt and Nubia, made during the years 1825, —26, —27, & —28: consisting of a series of descriptions & delineations of the monuments, scenery, &c of those countries; The views, with few exceptions, made with the camera-lucida: by Edwd Wm Lane—In three volumes.”

14 Burckhardt, John Lewis, Travels in Nubia (London: John Murray, 1819).Google Scholar

15 Lane to Hay, Robert (then in Egypt), 1 07 1832, Bodl. Lib., MS. Eng. lett. d. 165, fols. 52–53.Google Scholar Lane signed this letter “Munsoo'r,” adding, “I don't like giving up my old Egyptian name.”.

16 Modern Egyptians notebooks, GIA.

17 “Handlist for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 1826–1848” (published by the University College Library, University College London), 1.Google Scholar

18 Poole, Lane, Life of Edward William Lane, 34.Google Scholar

19 Documents relating to the publication of Modern Egyptians are among the Papers of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, Manuscript Collection, University College London Library.

20 The main source for this trip is the manuscript diary that Lane kept, now in the Griffith Institute Archives. This diary was published in the “Memoir” of Lane by Stanley Lane Poole at the beginning of the fifth volume of Lane's Arabic–English Lexicon. The memoir was later published as Lane Poole's Life of Edward William Lane. In both instances, however, the transcript of the diary has many deletions.

21 Lane to Murray, John III, 12 01 1836.Google Scholar

22 Lane, Edward William, An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, 2 vols. (London: Charles Knight and Co., 1836).Google Scholar

23 Quarterly Review 59 (1837): 165.Google Scholar

24 Lane to Murray, John III, 12 01 1836.Google Scholar

25 Lane to Murray, John III, copy, 31 03 1836, letter no. 76, GIA.Google Scholar

26 Lane to Murray, John III, 20 12 1836, John Murray Archives.Google Scholar

27 John Murray III to Lane, Richard J., 11 01 1837, letter no. 79, GIA.Google Scholar

28 (Sir) Wilkinson, John Gardner, Topography of Thebes, and General View of Egypt (London: John Murray, 1835).Google Scholar

29 (Sir) Wilkinson, John Gardner, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, 6 vols. (London: John Murray, 1837).Google Scholar

30 Lane, Edward William, The Thousand and One Nights, Commonly Called, in England, the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. A New Translation from the Arabic, with Copious Notes, 3 vols. (London: Charles Knight and Co., 1839–1841).Google Scholar

31 A selection of the notes was made by Lane's great-nephew and published as Arabian Society in the Middle Ages: Studies from the Thousand and One Nights, ed. Poole, Stanley Lane (London: Curzon Press, 1883;. repr 1987).Google Scholar

32 Lane to Hay, Robert, 17 02 [1840], Bodl. Lib., MS. Eng. lett. d. 165, fols. 109–10.Google Scholar Hay eventually published his work with encouragement and assistance from Lane. Hay, Robert, Illustrations of Cairo (London: Tilt and Bogue, 1840).Google Scholar It contains a handsome dedication to Lane.

33 Bodl. Lib., MS. Eng. misc. d. 234, fol. 195v.

34 (Sir) Wilkinson, John Gardner, Topographical Survey of Thebes, Tápé, Thaba, or Diospolis Magna (London: Royal Geographical Society, 1830).Google Scholar

35 BL Add. MS. 34081, fol. 163v.

36 Lane to Murray, John III, 4 09 1841, John Murray ArchivesGoogle Scholar.

37 Lane to Murray, John III, 4 09 1841.Google Scholar

38 British Library, Oriental and African Collection, Or. MS. 4630.

39 Lane, Edward William, Selections from the Ḳur-án (London: James Madden and Co., 1843).Google Scholar

40 Lane to Murray, John III, copy, 15 04 1842, Lane collection, letter no. 80, GIAGoogle Scholar. When the work was published, it was not by John Murray but by Charles Knight and Co., the firm that had published Modern Egyptians and the Arabian Nights. Whether this was by arrangement with Murray or whether Murray refused the proposal and Lane then turned to Knight is unclear.

41 Thompson, , Wilkinson, 204.Google Scholar

42 BL Add. MS. 34080, fol. 264. This was later published in Poole's, Sophia LaneThe Englishwoman in Egypt, 3 vols. (London: Charles Knight, 1844–1846), 2:115.Google Scholar

43 Poole, Sophia Lane, The Englishwoman in Egypt, iv–vi.Google Scholar

44 Lane to Hay, Robert, Cairo, 17 12 1844, Bodl. Lib., MS. Eng. lett. d. 165, fols. 149–50.Google Scholar

45 BL Add. MS. 34080, fol. 266v.

46 Lane, Edward William, Cairo Fifty Years Ago, ed. Poole, Stanley Lane (London: John Murray, 1896).Google Scholar

47 For the history of the original manuscript and the copy, see Lane Poole's preface to Cairo Fifty Years Ago, v–xii.

48 Commission Book, 1890, John Murray Archives, 146.

49 Lane, Edward William, The Genesis of the Earth and of Man, ed. Poole, Reginald Stuart (Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1856).Google Scholar A revised, expanded edition was published by Williams and Norgate in London in 1860.

50 BL Add. MS. 38080, fol. 152. The panoramic views are on BL Add. MS. 34083, fol. 12v–13, top and bottom. Preliminary studies for the panoramaare in the Lane collection in the Griffith Institute.

51 BL Add. MS. 34080, fol. 48.

52 Ibid., fol. 258v.

53 Ibid., fol. 215v.

54 Mengin, Félix, Histoire de l'Égypte sous le Gouvernement de Mohammed-Aly, 2 vols. (Paris: Chez Arthur Bertrand, 1823).Google Scholar

55 BL Add. MS. 34081, fol. 81.

56 BL Add. MS. 34080, fol. 263v.

57 Lane to Martineau, Harriet, copy, Cairo, 15 07 1848, letter no. 72, GIA.Google Scholar

58 Thompson, Jason, “Edward William Lane as Egyptologist,” Minerva 6 (Fall 1995): 12–17.Google Scholar

59 Thompson, Jason, “Edward William Lane as an Artist,” Gainsborough's House Review (1993/1994): 33–42.Google Scholar

60 Said, Edward, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon, 1978), esp. 23, 122, and 158–67Google Scholar; also Kabbani, Rana, Imperial Fictions (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 38Google Scholar; and Mitchell, Timothy, Colonising Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 23–24, 26–29.Google Scholar