The Mummy's Foot

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About this book

A search for a paperweight takes a Parisian collector into a crowded shop of antiques, where he buys an embalmed foot attributed to Princess Hermonthis, the daughter of a pharaoh. Delighted with his unusual purchase, he sets it among his unfinished verses and letters. That night, the object begins to behave in ways its new owner could hardly have expected.

Théophile Gautier's short tale combines an eye for decorative objects with the unsettling freedom of a dream. The princess appears beside the narrator's bed, and a conversation with her wandering foot gives the supernatural scene a comic turn. In Lafcadio Hearn's translation, detailed descriptions of furniture, fabrics, jewellery and ancient Egyptian ornaments make the strange events feel tangible. Readers interested in fantastic fiction can enjoy the shift from a familiar shopping expedition to an encounter in which an antique has a voice and a claim of its own.