Nile Journeys

Rating:
Summary: Wife's travel diary supplements husband's 1857 publication.
Review: This charming 1998 edition of Mary Trumbull Prime's travel diary from a voyage up the Nile during the winter season of 1855/1856, NILE JOURNEYS, edited by Charles Derowitsch, makes an interesting and curious addition to an earlier account of the same trip, published by Mr. Prime way back in 1857, within a year or two of the voyage. William Cowper Prime, 1825-1905, was an early Trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1857, Harper and Brothers of New York published two volumes comprising Mr. Prime's account of their travels to Egypt and the Holy Land: BOAT LIFE IN EGYPT AND NUBIA and TENT LIFE IN THE HOLY LAND. Insofar as this reader can determine, Mr. Derowitsch was completely unaware of the important link between Mrs. Prime's travel diary and her husband's earlier publication. Beyond doubt, the woman's point of view is valuable for its own sake, but the editor might have avoided a number of misreadings of Mrs. Prime's handwriting if he had done his homework and used her husband's version of the voyage as a constant reference.