Lifting the Veil: British Society in Egypt, 1768-1956

For a hundred years or more, until the last troops embarked at Suez in 1956, Egypt was the hub of Britain's empire, the point at which Western etiquette first encountered Eastern splendour. A unique cast of travellers, traders and troops made their way to and through Egypt. The explorer James Bruce, in 1768, thought Cairo was a great sink of tyranny and oppression, while Florence Nightingale, in 1849, called it the rose of cities and the garden of the desert. Samuel Shepheard opened a hotel here which became one of the world's most famous rendezvous. After the British invasion of 1882, Lord Cromer's unofficial control of the country was called the 'Veiled Protectorate'; but Egyptians were more familiar with the name of Thomas Cook & Son whose agents sent arrivals up the Nile to Luxor and Aswan by sailing boat or express tourist steamer. And Luxor's reputation was further enhanced after 1923 when Howard Carter made his famous discovery of the Tutankhamun tomb. Egypt had become a sophisticated resort which Noël Coward called the last refuge of the International Set. But by then Egyptian nationalism was in the ascendant, and soon the British would be withdrawing from Egypt for good. Using many rare diaries, letters and memoirs, Lifting the Veil traces the development of Western society along the Nile, showing how Egypt brought out a peculiar eccentricity in the imperial British character. Spiced with anecdote, adventure and gossip, Lifting the Veil is an accomplished narrative of social history. Anthony Sattin shows, for the first time in detail, that if India was the jewel in the imperial crown, Egypt was the bright clasp that held it in place. -- Dust jacket flap.