rt stories-vivid, haunting, detailed-is based on life in Egypt more than 3000 years ago, during what we now call the New Kingdom. It was a time when Egyptian life was at its most colorful and varied, when Egypt virtually dominated the entire Mediterranean Sea, and its Pharaohs and merchants had acquired quite unbelievable wealth and power, while the masses of poor people and slaves conquered from other lands had nothing whatever to call their own.

"There was nothing dull about life to the Egyptians. These stories, which might have been told or might have happened, give a picture of a people who were intensely alive. It is this quality that makes them exciting to read about, even though their civilization has long gone by."

-Olivia Coolidge