Overview

Since Antony and Cleopatra honeymooned on the Nile on a gilded barge, visitors to Egypt have taken to the river as the best way to experience the country's wonders. Early travelers took a dahabiya, an elegant triangular-sailed houseboat, and leisurely meandered from riverside site to site, for three months or more. Then from the late nineteenth century, Thomas Cook of Leicester, England, revolutionized the journey with a fleet of specially built paddle steamers. For the next sixty years these 'floating palaces,' with their private cabins, and dining, smoking, and viewing salons, red-uniformed dragoman guides, and organized donkey excursions, carried the aristocratic, moneyed, and adventurous of international society of the time using period photography, and colorful vintage posters and advertising material, this book tells the story of the people, the places, and the boats, from pioneering Nile travelers like Amelia Edwards and Lucie Duff Gordon, through to famed later passengers, such as Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Conan Doyle, and, of course, Agatha Christie, whose staging of a death on the Nile only added to the allure.

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9789774166938

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Reviews

It makes for fascinating reading...Meticulously researched...beautifully illustrated - Editor's Choice, The Good Book Guide

It makes for fascinating reading...Meticulously researched...beautifully illustrated - Editor's Choice, The Good Book Guide; 'beautiful images' - Lizzie Porter, Telegraph; 'A sense of romance positively oozes from every page of this delightful book.' - Robin Hanbury-Tenison, Country Life; 'beautifully produced account' - Mick Herron, Geographical;

'It makes for fascinating reading...Meticulously researched...beautifully illustrated' - Editor's Choice, The Good Book Guide; 'beautiful images' - Lizzie Porter, Telegraph; 'A sense of romance positively oozes from every page of this delightful book.' - Robin Hanbury-Tenison, Country Life; 'beautifully produced account' - Mick Herron, Geographical; 'This is a nostalgic look at the beginnings of tourism on one of the world's most romantic rivers ... Meticulously researched and beautifully illustrated with publicity posters, menus, photos and maps, this brilliantly evokes the golden age of steam travel on the Nile.' - Editor's Choice, Good Book Guide; 'A Sense of romance positively oozes from every page of this delightful book.' Robin Hanbury, The Country Life; A fascinating new book is delving into the history of classic British travel agents Thomas Cook. Katie Amey, Dalily Mail; 'Humphrey's beautifully produced account of tourism's golden age is largely of what became of Cook & Son, from its internal politics to its ties to government and the British Army.' Mick Herron, Geographical Magazine;

Author Information

Andrew Humphreys is the author of National Geographic Traveler Egypt ( AUC Press, 2009) and Grand Hotels of Egypt in the Golden Age of Travel (AUC Press, 2012).

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