“Miriam Lichtheim’s three-volume set is the most complete compilation; it is accessible to the general reader and simultaneously useful to the scholar; its critical apparatus is excellent.”— World Literature Today

“This is an admirable and valuable book. For the scholar it presents thoroughly reliable translations, with commentary and documentation. For the amateur of literature it presents a comprehensive selection of prose and poetry, felicitously put into English.”— Cambridge Review of Middle East Studies

“The new collection of ancient Egyptian literary masterpieces in English translation from the pen of Miriam Lichtheim is both representative and up to date. It is a literary masterpiece in itself, a landmark in the translation of ancient texts, and a scholarly achievement of outstanding excellence.”— Journal of Near Eastern Studies


First published in 1973, this anthology has assumed classic status in the field of Egyptology and portrays the remarkable evolution of the literary forms of one of the world’s earliest civilizations. Beginning with the early and gradual evolution of Egyptian genres, it includes biographical and historical inscriptions carved on stone, the various classes of works written with pen on papyrus, and the mortuary literature that focuses on life after death. It then shows the culmination of these literary genres within the single period known as the New Kingdom (1550–1080 B.C.) and ends in the last millennium of Pharaonic civilization, from the tenth century B.C. to the beginning of the Christian era. An introduction written in three parts by Antonio Loprieno, Hans-W. Fischer-Elfert, and Joseph G. Manning completes this classic anthology.