I have a thing for Egypt. I think I've mentioned that before. I've had one ever since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, when I took part in a school play about the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb. I've also mentioned before that one of my favourite films is Hammer's The Mummy (1959). I also have a fondness for vampires (not the sparkly ones). So, you can imagine how over the moon and beside myself with joy I was when I first read Charlotte Bryson Taylor's In the Dwellings of the Wilderness... which contains a vampiric mummy! Did all of my Christmases come at once, or what!
Anyway, this wonderful book is the next Nezu Press offering, and it will be out on 8 June. The Independent (New York) described it as ‘A story with a new kind of thrill', and warned 'all who have nerves and nightmares against reading this book.' Current Literature was 'strongly reminded of some of Edgar Allan Poe’s work.' According to the San Francisco Chronicle, it is ‘Weird, almost grewsome, with an incongruity of modern practical life which serves to throw its other characteristics into all the stronger light.’
When Deane, Merritt, and Holloway uncover the entrance to a previously undisturbed tomb while digging in Egypt, they ignore the warning inscribed above its entrance to ‘wake not the soul that sleeps within’. They unblock the doorway marked ‘forbidden’ and uncover the mummy of an ancient Egyptian princess who was buried alive for her sins. And in opening the tomb, they release the devil that dwells within.
First published in 1904, this new edition of In the Dwellings of the Wilderness includes a 20-page biographical essay by yours truly, “Charlotte Bryson Taylor: ‘Clever Writer of Fiction’ and ‘Angel’ of Washington Fire Department”, which contains a large amount of new information about the author of this atmospheric tale of the mummy’s curse.
ISBN-13: 978-1-917113-16-8
Case laminate hardback, 22.86cm x 15.24cm (6" x 9"), 114 pages
Published: 8 June 2026
The book is available to pre-order from the Nezu Press store (please click here); global shipping is available (with no tariffs for US customers). Alternatively, it will be available from the usual online retailers soon, and you can order it from bricks-and-mortar stores.
