Author: Stephanie Moser
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Price: £20.00
Isbn: 0226542092

Living up to both its titles, this opul­ently ill­ust­rated volume is a nat­ural for coffee tables every­where. Steph­anie Moser com­bines labour of love with love of labour, pro­vid­ing a met­icu­lously docu­mented good story fort­if­ied with agree­ably terse, prim­ary source-based notes, a serv­ice­able index and a biblio­graph­ical cornu­copia (though miss­ing John Ray’s The Ros­etta Stone and the Rebirth of Anci­ent Egypt (2007; FT223:62). Alas, her prose is leaden, albeit large­ly jargon-free, and fabul­ous char­act­ers such as Bel­zoni are never brought to life.

Moser’s ‘Big Idea’, trump­eted from page 3 ad naus­eam ac tæd­ium is “Museum exhib­it­ion makes use of its own dis­tinct­ive con­vent­ions to create mean­ing.” True, but that’s a given.

Should be read along­side Kings­ley Amis & Robert Con­quest’s The Egypt­o­log­ists for light relief, along with David Lodge’s The Brit­ish Museum is Fall­ing Down.