Amelia Peabody is the main character of a series of twenty historical mystery novels and one non-fiction companion volume written by archaeology PhD, Barbara Mertz (1927–2013) under the pen name Elizabeth Peters. The series was published between 1975 and 2010. A final, posthumous novel, uncompleted at Mertz's death was finished by Joan Hess and appeared in 2017.
Character[]
Amelia is considered an "unconventional woman" and a "spinster," she is introduced in Crocodile on the Sandbank and described as an educated, opinionated, suffragist and scholar, living in England in 1884. She had spent most of her life caring for her widowed father, and educating herself with his library, learning numerous languages, and a great deal of classic history.
History[]
With the death of her scholarly father, she inherits almost half a million pounds and determines to see the world.
In Rome her traveling companion takes ill, and Amelia meets Evelyn Barton-Forbes, a young Englishwoman of social standing who had eloped with and been abandoned by her lover. Amelia takes Evelyn in hand and appoints her as new traveling companion, and the two make their way to Egypt. There they meet the Emerson brothers, Egyptologist Radcliffe and his philologist brother Walter. Eventually, Amelia marries Radcliffe Emerson, and Evelyn marries Walter. Amelia and her husband always affectionately call each other by their surnames
Following the birth of their son Walter Peabody Emerson, know by the nickname Ramses, the Emersons settle in Kent, from where Emerson commutes to a job lecturing in Egyptology at university in London. Despite Amelia's suggestions that he resume seasonal digs in Egypt, Emerson insists on staying in England with his family while Ramses is too young to travel. Peabody and Emerson return to Egypt at least once without Ramses in The Curse of the Pharaohs in 1892 before they decide to bring him along on their annual digs beginning in The Mummy Case, for the 1894-95 season.
While the Emersons excavate Mazghuna, they encounter a criminal mastermind who runs an illicit antiquities trade, stealing artifacts from tombs, putting him at odds with the Emersons. Amelia initially calls him "The Master Criminal," but eventually learns his name is Sethos. Sethos is later revealed to be Emerson's previously unknown half-brother, Seth.
During the 1897-1898 season while on an archaeological expedition to Nubia in The Last Camel Died at Noon, after an adventure worthy of H. Rider Haggard the family discovers Nefret Forth, the daughter of a former acquaintance of Emerson's. Nefret returns to England with the Emersons and becomes their ward.
Inspiration[]
Amelia was in part inspired by Amelia Edwards, a Victorian novelist, travel writer, and Egyptologist, whose best-selling 1873 book, A Thousand Miles up the Nile is similar in tone to Amelia Emerson's narration. The character was also semi-autobiographical and were based on Peters' own experience in academia.
Novels[]
Sources[]
Crocodile on the Sandbank