This edition was created in three
forms:
Hardback ISBN:0-922890-36-6 | Collector ISBN 0-922890-37-4 |
Limited ISBN 0-922890-38-2
Pictured is the Limited Edition. It
originally sold for $75.00 in 1990. I have never seen the
Collector or Hardback edition.
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Presumably the Collector and Limited
Edition books each had a tipped in page with Peters
signature. The book that I own is one of the 26
lettered books, "S".
The tipped in page mentions a set of
100 numbered and signed books also. This may be the
Collector Edition. The tipped-in page is shown in
the photo on the left.
The Introduction is interesting, as
Peters talks about why she wrote the first book and how the
characters developed. I have quoted it in full below. |
INTRODUCTION (Crocodile on the Sandbank, Armchare Detective
Library, Limited Edition)
One of the most exasperating questions a reader can ask a writer is, "Where do you get your ideas?" I am not sure why I find it exasperating-perhaps because I don't know the answer? I would certainly like to know where Amelia Peabody sprang from. That she did spring, full grown and armored in brass, like Minerva from the head of a greater than
I, is indubitable. When I began the book in which she made her first appearance, I had no intention of writing about a person like that.
As Elizabeth Peters I had written a novel of suspense set in modern Egypt, making use of my academic training in archaeology to provide (I hoped) authenticity. As Barbara Michaels I had produced several suspense novels set in Victorian England. When someone
- I forget who - proposed that I select Victorian Egypt as the setting for my next novel, it seemed a logical suggestion.
The fact that I had a couple of degrees in Egyptology didn't mean that I was qualified to write about nineteenth century Egypt. In some ways my academic background was a disadvantage. One of the biggest problem in writing historical fiction is avoiding anachronisms, of mores and manners, language and culture; in this case I would have to double-check in every reference I made to matters Egyptological, to make certain that my characters didn't toss off remarks about discoveries that would not be made for another half century.
However, I enjoy doing nit-picky research of that nature, and I had already done some reading for a projected non-fiction book on the history of nineteenth century Egyptology, so when I sat down at my typewriter
I felt that I was better prepared than I usually am when I sit down at whatever mechanism I happen to be using. I even had the basic elements of the plot worked out-to use that word loosely.
For me, I regret to admit, a plot is not a neat outline of the action, but a jumble of ideas I intend to incorporate. They rattle around in my head like tins of soup in a badly packed shopping bag, and it always astonishes me that eventually they end up in some sort of order. In this case I had a whole bagful of odds and ends. Many of them came from my unfortunate fondness for sensational fiction-ghost stories, pulp horror magazines, Rider Haggard, Sax Rohmer, et al. No culture has spawned so many shivery stories as that of ancient Egypt: haunted tombs, resurrected mummies, reincarnation, diabolical rites. . . . Wonderful grist for the mill of a writer of suspense thrillers! I intended to use as many of these gruesome themes as possible.
My hero, of course, would be an Egyptologist. They were a dashing lot in those days, before the dawn of scientific archaeology. I would not stray too far from reality if I made my hero a combination of adventurer and scholar.
My heroine. . . .
It was at that stage that the custard pie hit the fan. I have no idea how my proper (but spunky) young English
lady-tourist turned into Amelia. If I believed in reincarnation, diabolical rites, and the like, I would suspect she had been lurking in the wings all along, tapping her foot impatiently and waiting for me to open the door. As soon as I did, in she marched, parasol at the ready, and took over.
I recognized her immediately. I had known her sisters under the skin
- intrepid Victorian females, feminists and breakers of tradition. They climbed mountains, bustles firmly lashed down to avoid any unseemly display of ankle; they deserted their husbands to live openly "in sin" with other men; they fought their way into universities, medical schools, and other areas hitherto closed to women; they wrote novels, essays, diatribes, diaries.
One of these literary ladies was Amelia B. Edwards. She earned her living writing sensational novels, but it is not for them that she is remembered. Her diary of her first trip to Egypt, A THOUSAND MILES UP THE NILE, is now a classic of its kind, and the trip itself inspired in Miss Edwards a life-long fascination with Egyptology. Her greatest contribution to the field was the founding of the Egypt Exploration Fund, which is still (as the Egypt Exploration Society) one of the foremost organizations dedicated to the study of ancient Egypt.
Names are important. Sometimes I find it impossible to write about a character until I have found the correct name for him or her. It was certainly from Miss Edwards that I derived Amelia's first name and the circumstances of her interest in Egyptology, but there is no other resemblance between them. "Peabody" was, I modestly admit, a stroke of pure genius. (It is, of course, pronounced "Pibbidy.") I frankly consider "Radcliffe Emerson" almost equally inspired, which means I have no idea where I got it. The name suits him. But I don't blame him for preferring to be addressed by his surname.
Like Amelia, Emerson owes one or two traits to a real person, William Flinders Petrie, the so-called "father of scientific archaeology." Petrie, one of Miss Edwards'
protégés, was the first to insist on the meticulous recording of every scrap of evidence from the past, even the despised pottery sherds. Some of his predecessors had been treasure hunters, pure and simple; dynamite was a
not uncommon tool in excavation. Even reputable scholars of Petrie's time were more interested in monuments and inscriptions than they were in the grubby debris of ordinary human life. Petrie was not reticent about condemning these practices, and the practitioners thereof. Since Emerson was to be a contemporary of Petrie's I felt free to borrow from Petrie his intellectual eminence and his irascibility-and, as is my habit, to exaggerate both qualities.
Once Amelia and Emerson stormed onto the stage all resemblance between them and other characters living or dead ceased to exist. They became themselves. I know them so well now that I don't have to invent their conversations or actions or opinions; I simply put them into a particular situation and describe their reactions.
I suppose my own personality traits are to some extent mirrored in Amelia. But in another, rather terrifying way, she has had a greater effect on me than I have had on her. I am much more like Amelia than I was when I began writing about her. Sometimes I feel like the ventriloquist whose dummy came to life and reversed their respective roles; but for the most part I think of our relationship as a positive one. She's not such a bad role model-honest, loyal, honorable, and profoundly contemptuous of humbuggery.
As for my relationship with Emerson. . . . As Amelia would say, much as I commend frankness in such matters, there are areas in which an individual is entitled to privacy.
Elizabeth Peters
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