The Green Mummy

Fergus Hume (Fergusson Wright Hume)Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.9
Word count
492K words
Chapters
50

Tags

English Originals Mystery and Suspense Suspense ThrillerBritish MysteryMystery InvestigationPlot TwistRelic MysteryComplex HumanityPsychological InsightEgyptian Curse

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Green Mummy by Fergus HumeAuthor: Hume, Fergus, 1859-1932,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Oct 1, 2001

Editor's review

The Green Mummy is a popular detective novel by Fergus Hume, typical of the late-Victorian sensation fiction tradition. Centered on a green mummy brought from Egypt, the story revolves around its collection, contest, and secrets, weaving the era's craze for exotic archaeology into the tangled interests of an English family. Hume excels at short chapters and suspense-driven narration; the plot is dense with frequent twists and reads briskly—a classic "read it in one sitting" diversion. Its most interesting feature is how it turns British society's fascination with ancient Egyptian artifacts into an engine of intrigue, letting readers enjoy the puzzle while sensing how popular literature of the time projected exotic imaginings. As a public-domain ebook, it works as an accessible sample of late-nineteenth-century British detective fiction and suits fragmented reading on commutes or trips. A caveat: its literary depth is limited and characterization is largely functional, so it is better read as genre fiction than as a serious classic.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read the opening chapters first to grasp the core conflict between the mummy and family interests, then follow the clues forward.
  2. Treat the short chapters as commute-sized units—one or two per session—to keep the suspense alive.
  3. Skip over Victorian phrasing at first rather than looking up every word; prioritize following the plot.
  4. After finishing, compare it with detective fiction of the same era to see how exotic artifacts are used as plot devices.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
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  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50

FAQ

Is this book an English original, and is it hard to read? According to the source, it is an English public-domain ebook released by Project Gutenberg, in English. It is popular plot-driven fiction with generally straightforward sentences, though it contains late-nineteenth-century usage and some cultural background; readers with intermediate English can attempt it, skipping unfamiliar words at first.
I haven't read the author's other works—can I start with this one? Yes. Hume's popular novels generally stand alone, and this book does not depend on earlier setups. Accept its plot-driven, short-chapter style and you can enter the story without knowing the author's life or other works beforehand.
Is this suitable for close reading as a literary classic? Not really. It is closer to the diversionary detective fiction of its day; its value lies in plot design and period interest rather than deep psychological portrayal or stylistic experiment. For serious literary analysis, choose canonical novels of the same period as a comparison.

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About the author

Fergus Hume (Fergusson Wright Hume) Author · English · 1859–1932

Fergus Hume (1859–1932) was a British novelist. Born in England, he moved with his family to New Zealand as a child, studied at the University of Otago and qualified as a lawyer. In 1885 he went to Melbourne, and the following year he published The Mystery of a Hansom Cab at his own expense, achieving instant fame; the book is regarded as a bestselling classic in the history of detective fiction. In 1888 Hume returned to England to settle, and thereafter devoted himself to detective and suspense fiction, producing more than a hundred works in his lifetime, of which 66 are held in this collection, including The Silent House, The Gentleman Who Vanished and The Spider. He died in Essex in 1932.