The authoress Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards (18311892) enjoyed three separate careers: as a journalist, a novelist, and an Egyptologist. She was also an active supporter of the suffrage movement, serving at one time as VicePresident of the Society for Promoting Women s Suffrage. She was born in 1831 in London. Her father had been an army officer before becoming a banker. Her mother, of the Irish nobility, educated Amelia at home. She published poetry, stories, and articles in a number of magazines including Chamber s Journal, Dicken s Household Words and All the Year Round. She also wrote for the newspapers, the Saturday Review and the Morning Post. Her first full-length novel was My Brother s Wife (1855). Her early novels were well-received, but it was Barbara s History (1864), a novel of bigamy, that solidly established her reputation as a novelist. Her last novel, Lord Brackenbury (1880), was very successful. Yet it is not her novels that are reprinted nowadays, but her traveller s tales. At the age of 30, following the death of her parents and thanks to the proceeds of her writings, Amelia embarked on a series of intrepid expeditions, of which she wrote. Her accounts are notable for her knowledge of her surroundings, her interest and openness towards the people and customs of other countries, and not least for the humour and enthusiasm which enliven many of her experiences. At a time when male chaperonage was considered socially, if not physically, essential for a woman traveller, she chose to travel and live with a woman companion. Their first trip was chronicled as Sights and Stories: A Holiday Tour Through Northern Belgium (1862). A challenging journey through the Dolomites, a mountainous area almost unknown to tourists at that time, is recounted in Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Valleys (1873). Together the two women braved difficulties, privations and resistant or hostile male servants and villagers. It is clear that part of the attraction of travelling for Edwards was the challenge of reaching areas that were almost entirely untouched and inaccessible. It was her third journey, however, that substantially changed the direction of Edwards life. In 1870, she travelled to Egypt and sailed up the Nile to Abu Simbel. There, she spent six weeks excavating at the Temple of k 9