“Amelia B. Edwards” by George Herbert Watkins.

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Amelia B. Edwards (1831-1892)

George Herbert Watkins

Late 1850s (1858-59)

Albumen print

7 ½ x 6 inches (190 mm x 152 mm) image size

See below for commentary.

By kind permission of the Peggy Joy Egyptology Library, Michigan

The details of photographer, date and size all come, with thanks, from another copy in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London, where it is No. 23 in the Watkins Album. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Already a popular novelist by now, Edwards would have been in her late twenties here. "With her hair neatly coiled over her ears and wearing a high-necked blouse with a loosely knotted cravat in what might be termed ‘governess-mode,’ she is shown in the act of writing with a quill pen, the very model of a successful authoress" (Marsh).

William Joy of the Peggy Joy Egyptology Library writes that Edwards was "a very fascinating person..., the most important female figure in Egyptology's long and interesting history, but she was many more things besides. Before she discovered Egypt, she was a novelist and short story writer; a collaborator with Charles Dickens, as well as a composer of music, and a superb artist. She was the sort of person who could excel and succeed in just about any area she took an interest in, and did. Our library has a large archive of material for her... many books, including first editions of fiction as well as non-fiction, correspondence, music and artwork (correpondence with the Victorian Web). — Jacqueline Banerjee

Related Material

Amelia B. Edwards, An Appreciation (1897)

Bibliography

Marsh, Jan. "Amelia Edwards: Extended Catalogue Entry." National Portrait Gallery. Web. 1 June 2021.

Last modified 5 June 2021