I visited my mom over Easter and, while I was there, I had the chance to look through some of my old books. One of the titles I came across was Tales of Ancient Egypt by Roger Lancelyn Green. A friend of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkein, Green was a great popularizer of world mythology and folktales. Tales of Ancient Egypt was my first exposure to ancient Egyptian literature and his retelling of the Setna Khaemwaset stories captivated me. The sense of wonder that that little volume evoked has remained with me through the years and I owe Green an enormous debt of gratitude since his work set me on the path that would eventually lead me to Evil in Thebes.
Since I first read Tales of Ancient Egypt, I’ve read more Egyptian literature than any sane person should. I can now see how Green took liberties with his source material. Sometimes he bowdlerized, sometimes he simplified. Every once and a while, he embellished for dramatic effect. But because he was aiming to capture the spirit of his source material rather than the precise details, his renderings are often much more pleasing to the casual reader than the scholarly treatments found in Lichtheim or Simpson.
So if you’re looking for an accessible introduction to the world of Egyptian literature but don’t want to get bogged down in a sea of philological footnotes and opaque scholarly commentary (though I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t enjoy those things!), I highly recommend Green’s book.
Codex Lochianus 