Description of Egypt : The American University in Cairo Press : 9789774169342 : 9774169344 : 04 Aug 2020 : The great nineteenth-century British traveler Edward William Lane (1801?76) was the author of a number of highly influential works: An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (1836), his translation of The Thousand and One Nights (1839?41), Selections from the Kur-an (1843), and the Arabic?English Lexicon (1863?93). Yet in 1831, publication of one of his greatest works, Description of Egypt, was delayed, and eventually dropped, mainly for financial reasons, by the publishing firm of John Murray. The manuscript was sold to the British Library by Lane's widow in 1891, and was salvaged for publication as a hardcover book, in 2000, by Jason Thompson, nearly 170 years after its completion. Now available in paperback, this book, which takes the form of a journey through Egypt from north to south, with descriptions of all the ancient monuments and contemporary life tha