‘Thus the work goes on…’: Amelia B. Edwards and Imperial ‘Remembering’ of Egypt

This article explores the role of Amelia B. Edwards in creating new structures of ‘remembering’ within the imperial framework of late Victorian Britain. Referring to Jan Assmann’s mnemohistory, it suggests that Edwards’s use of popular appeal, including the possibility of ‘encounter’, widened the participation of imperial ‘remembering’. Combined with a growing consumer culture, Egypt became a vector to spread a message of British exceptionalism to the general public. The emphasis on biblical and classical narratives, so closely tied to the moral justification of empire and Edwards’s vivid presentation, which played with the flexibility of time and possibilities of encounter and was strategic in creating her own legitimacy, made Egypt a tangible memory to the masses.