"The Egyptian Red Book" (1885) is one of the many resources about
ninteenth century Egypt available through the Travelers in the Middle East Archive (TIMEA).
This satire of Britain's handling of the siege of Gen. Charles Gordon's forces in Sudan (then part of Egypt) contains a
number of cartoons, along with quotations from England's leaders. The figures in satiric cartoons typically
are obvious to informed readers during the time period when they were published, but are
likely mysterious to non-experts in later generations.
As we flip through the pamphlet, one question repeatedly comes to the
fore:
Who are these guys?
We will use library resources to answer that question as well
as to determine how these particular personages fit into the larger story contained in the "Red Book." If
you would like to begin with the story itself, please visit our
Getting the whole story behind the Egyptian Red Book module.
If we take a look at the back cover of the Egyptian Red Book, we find two
other publications listed that are, according to the publisher, "Uniform with the 'Egyptian
Red Book." These are "The Gladstone Almanack" and "The Liberal Mis-Leaders." Let's take
a look at what else we might be able to find by the publishers, William Blackwood &
Sons, on WorldCat. If you are unfamiliar with WorldCat, please visit our WorldCat module for a brief tutorial.
To begin, visit the WorldCat homepage. Type in the title "Egyptian Red Book" and then locate it in the
search results. We want
to find as many similar works by our publishers as we can. Open a new window and try
performing a search for William Blackwood under publisher and caricatures and cartoons under
subject. Your query should look like this:
We find many promising sources right away:
For a brief discussion of "The Irish Green Book," see the
What is a Red Book module.
This seems to be just the thing, as does the following.
Because the "Egyptian Red Book" provides no information about its author(s), we cannot be
certain if George Stronach and George R. Halkett created it as well as "The Irish Green
Book." But the connection with William Blackwood is strong enough
to investigate the possibility.
Since our library does not have these works, let's place a request with
interlibrary loan to procure them. If
you are unfamiliar with interlibrary loan, a method for borrowing works from other
libraries, please visit our interlibrary loan module for a brief tutorial.
The first work to arrive takes about a week and comes from a library in El
Paso, Texas:
The first page proves that our efforts in procuring this outside source have paid
off.
A closer inspection reveals some familiar faces, compare the cartoons at the
beginning of this module to the characters you see below, as well as to the names in the
quotations in the Red Book.
Now that we can identify some of the characters in the cartoons, we have a shot at
understanding the message the Red Book attempts to communicate. For instance, the gentleman holding
the card saying "W. E. Gladstone" looks suspiciously like the man at the head of the line in
Figure 3, "Mummy Governmernt." Gladstone is quoted throughout the "Red Book," so the
similarity is probably not coincidental. We can compare this image of Gladstone's and his colleagues
with cartoons from the "Red Book" to identify other figures.
A Diary of the Gladstone Government appears to be a satirical account of
Gladstone's Government from 1880-1885 by the very creators of the "Egyptian Red
Book." Before we can really understand the full story behind the "Red Book," however, we need to take a look at who
some of these people really were.
If you need to learn more about a prominent person, turn to a biographical
dictionary. For instance,
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (DNB)
is, according to its publisher the Oxford University Press, "the first point of reference for anyone interested in
the lives of the peoples of the British Isles and their connections overseas, from the
earliest times to the end of the year 2000. It is the product of research instituted at the
University of Oxford and funded by the British Academy and by Oxford University Press. It is
the achievement of 10,000 contributors and advisers staff in Oxford. The Oxford DNB aims to
provide full, accurate, concise, and readable articles on noteworthy people in all walks of
life. No living person is included: the Dictionary's articles are confined to people who
died before 31 December 2000." I'd say that that about covers it. There are also similar
biographical guides profiling people from other countries, including the US, Japan, and
Germany, but right now we're interested in the British. Although we could get the DNB
online, let's
take a look at it in
the stacks.
The DNB is organized alphabetically, so finding our characters is relatively
easy. Let's start with William Gladstone, prime minister of England and author. In the scholarly DNB we find a very
different representation of Gladstone from the contemporary satires.
The entry for Gladstone spans over twenty-five pages, 383-409, covering many
different areas of his life and career, including his education, early political career, and
political service during different periods. The entries are divided by heading and are
chronological so we can easily browse for what we are most interested in. Now let's look at
Gen. [Charles]
Gordon, the protagonist of the "Red Book."
We find that over half of Gordon's entry deals with his time in the Sudan.
Gladstone's Government plays heavily in this text. Without our research into other satiric
depictions of nineteenth-century Britain and into the biographies of important figures
included in them, we would have more dificulty uncovering the story behind "The Egyptian Red
Book," which is explained in the
Getting the Whole Story From the Egyptian Red book module. This goes to show how
the different aspects and methods of any research project can complement one another, adding
to the overall yield of your research.
At this point we have the means to identify each of the characters in the
cartoons contained in the Egyptian Red Book and the sources of the many quotes throughout.
We are beginning to unravel the story, its context and the critique represented by the
caricatures.
Now, when you find a name that is unfamiliar in the "Red Book," you can locate
it in the DNB. When you see an unfamiliar face in any one of the cartoons, you can look for
a similar depiction in the other works published by William Blackwood.
The sources that you come to in your research will probably be related in
one way or another. Learning to correlate these sources and use them to explore others makes
each more valuable than it would be alone.
