Literary Precursors

Abstract

This chapter discusses the portrayal of mummies and ancient Egypt in fantastic literature. While not necessarily the basis of a coherent subgenre, mummies were a recurring theme in the supernatural literature of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as authors of the fantastic found their imaginations fired by the latest developments in Egyptology. Stories from this period often differ significantly from the mummy films that would later develop in Hollywood, but certain aspects of them are nonetheless echoed by Universal Pictures' subgenre-defining 1932 film The Mummy. The chapter then describes haunted mummies and walking mummies. There are three writers in particular who stand out as the most likely influences upon Universal's The Mummy: Bram Stoker, Arthur Conan Doyle, and H. Rider Haggard.