A vivid portrait of Howard Carter emerges from this fictionalised story of his quest to uncover the tomb of the boy-king
Unearthing the truth … real and fictional characters mingle in Beauman's tale of Tutankhamun. Photograph: Frank Trapper/Corbis
Every few years, historians take exception to novelists encroaching on their territory, and historical fiction gets a battering in the press. The rise and rise of Hilary Mantel, herself an able defender of the writer's right to write about whatever she damn well pleases, has put a temporary stop to these bad-tempered outbreaks. The truth is that a great deal of fiction is historical; most writers who write more than one novel will, at some point, set a book in the past. Historical fiction remains ever-popular as a genre, and historical fiction readers are among the most engaged of online reading communities.
Many writers are attempting to tap into this passionate conversation by producing a stream of historical fiction sequels to once-contemporary novels, such as PD James's take on Pride and Prejudice, the recently televised Death Comes to Pemberley; Sally Beauman herself embarked on this most meta-fictional of readerly responses through her Du Maurier sequel, Rebecca's Tale, set in the 1950s.
And, of course, the past has all the great stories. One of these is Howard Carter and his search for the tomb of King Tutankhamun, which Beauman has tackled in her new book, The Visitors. Set in Egypt in the 1920s and London in the present day, this hugely readable novel tells the story of Carter's long years of toil in the Valley of the Kings through the eyes of a 10-year-old English girl recovering from a bout of typhoid to which she has lost her mother. Her academic father retreats to his Cambridge college and it is left to Lucy's temporary guardian, an American of suitably doughty proportions, to restore her young charge to health on a lengthy excursion to Egypt.
At Shepheard's Hotel in Cairo Lucy makes friends with a whole host of archaeologists, their wives, their servants, and, most crucially, their children, a clever mix of real and fictional characters that includes Carter and his patron, Lord Carnarvon. After a fairly lengthy setup, the party decamps to Luxor, where those most glorious of bodies are buried.
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Many writers are attempting to tap into this passionate conversation by producing a stream of historical fiction sequels to once-contemporary novels, such as PD James's take on Pride and Prejudice, the recently televised Death Comes to Pemberley; Sally Beauman herself embarked on this most meta-fictional of readerly responses through her Du Maurier sequel, Rebecca's Tale, set in the 1950s.
And, of course, the past has all the great stories. One of these is Howard Carter and his search for the tomb of King Tutankhamun, which Beauman has tackled in her new book, The Visitors. Set in Egypt in the 1920s and London in the present day, this hugely readable novel tells the story of Carter's long years of toil in the Valley of the Kings through the eyes of a 10-year-old English girl recovering from a bout of typhoid to which she has lost her mother. Her academic father retreats to his Cambridge college and it is left to Lucy's temporary guardian, an American of suitably doughty proportions, to restore her young charge to health on a lengthy excursion to Egypt.At Shepheard's Hotel in Cairo Lucy makes friends with a whole host of archaeologists, their wives, their servants, and, most crucially, their children, a clever mix of real and fictional characters that includes Carter and his patron, Lord Carnarvon. After a fairly lengthy setup, the party decamps to Luxor, where those most glorious of bodies are buried.
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