Horror: The 100 Best Books by Kim Newman, Stephen Jones
Authors: Kim Newman, Stephen Jones
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appalled witness as Tera's influence is increased through a variety of magical rituals which focus on artefacts found in the queen's tomb. It is one of several Victorian and Edwardian works -- Richard Marsh's The Beetle (1897), Arthur Conan Doyle's story "Lot No. 249" -- that reflect public interest in Egyptian archaeology. It was first adapted as Curse of the Mummy , a 1970 segment of the TV series Mystery and Imagination with Isabel Black, and has subsequently been filmed twice: as Blood from the Mummy's Tomb (1971), and as The Awakening (1980), the latter novelized by R. Chetwynd-Hayes.
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The Jewel of Seven Stars is Bram Stoker's best-constructed novel after Dracula , and revives his themes of immortality through supernatural, and horrific, means. The single-narrator technique is equally as effective and direct in Jewel as the multi-narrator, journal/letters format used in Dracula , while the degrees of compelling suspense and uncanny complexity are maintained excellently throughout the length of the novel. A feeling of credulity is retained by the liberal descriptions of Egyptian objects and metaphysics in full detail. The jewel of the title is an enormous ruby carved like a scarab (illustrated on the cover and title-page of the first edition), embellished by hieroglyphics and a clear design of seven stars in the exact contemporary position of the stars in the Plough constellation. Among the more ghastly artefacts to be found in the London house of Trelawny and his daughter Margaret (where most of the action takes place) are the mummy of a mysterious great Egyptian queen, and her severed, perfectly preserved hand with seven digits. This mummy, found hidden in the remote "Valley of the Sorcerers", is of a remarkable "historical" figure adept in magic and ritual, and all the occult Egyptian sciences: "Tera, Queen of the Egypts, daughter of Antef. Monarch of the North and South. Daughter of the Sun. Queen of the Diadems". She has suspended herself in time, making all the preparations necessary for her resurrection over forty centuries later; and this is the incredible experiment in which Trelawny is engaged. Much has been written in recent years about the "Dracula notes" (sold at auction in 1913, and now housed in Philadelphia), which detail the lengthy research made by Bram Stoker into the occult, historical and geographical background of his great vampire novel. It is very likely that Stoker undertook similar extended research during 1897-1902 for The Jewel of Seven Stars , although these notes have never been discovered or annotated. The life and times of Vlad the Impaler and his bloodthirsty contemporaries have been very fully documented in various books, whereas the "original" of Queen Tera has attracted virtually no interest at all. The only historical character who comes reasonably close to the description of Stoker's Queen Tera is Sebekneferu, also known as Sobknofru, daughter of the great Pharaoh Amenemhat III. She became Queen, and sole monarch, of Egypt after the death of her brother in the closing years of the Twelfth Dynasty. Cryptically, Stoker describes Queen Tera as a ruler in the Eleventh Dynasty, and her shortened name may have been derived from "Nebtauira" who (according to Flinders Petrie) followed Antef III in the Eleventh Dynasty. Although described as "daughter of Antef, there were several pharaohs of this name in quick succession during the same dynasty; but in Stoker's time, Egyptologists were still arguing about the correct dates, sequence and chronology of the earlier dynasties. There were still many "blank on the map" areas, and Stoker was free to mix fact and fiction to his heart's content. Some of the leading Egyptologists and archaeologists of the day were among the regular guests entertained by Sir Henry Irving and Bram Stoker at the Lyceum Theatre and the Beefsteak Club in London. Stoker would have had plenty of opportunities to discuss the occult and arcane lore of Ancient Egypt with
***
The Jewel of Seven Stars is Bram Stoker's best-constructed novel after Dracula , and revives his themes of immortality through supernatural, and horrific, means. The single-narrator technique is equally as effective and direct in Jewel as the multi-narrator, journal/letters format used in Dracula , while the degrees of compelling suspense and uncanny complexity are maintained excellently throughout the length of the novel. A feeling of credulity is retained by the liberal descriptions of Egyptian objects and metaphysics in full detail. The jewel of the title is an enormous ruby carved like a scarab (illustrated on the cover and title-page of the first edition), embellished by hieroglyphics and a clear design of seven stars in the exact contemporary position of the stars in the Plough constellation. Among the more ghastly artefacts to be found in the London house of Trelawny and his daughter Margaret (where most of the action takes place) are the mummy of a mysterious great Egyptian queen, and her severed, perfectly preserved hand with seven digits. This mummy, found hidden in the remote "Valley of the Sorcerers", is of a remarkable "historical" figure adept in magic and ritual, and all the occult Egyptian sciences: "Tera, Queen of the Egypts, daughter of Antef. Monarch of the North and South. Daughter of the Sun. Queen of the Diadems". She has suspended herself in time, making all the preparations necessary for her resurrection over forty centuries later; and this is the incredible experiment in which Trelawny is engaged. Much has been written in recent years about the "Dracula notes" (sold at auction in 1913, and now housed in Philadelphia), which detail the lengthy research made by Bram Stoker into the occult, historical and geographical background of his great vampire novel. It is very likely that Stoker undertook similar extended research during 1897-1902 for The Jewel of Seven Stars , although these notes have never been discovered or annotated. The life and times of Vlad the Impaler and his bloodthirsty contemporaries have been very fully documented in various books, whereas the "original" of Queen Tera has attracted virtually no interest at all. The only historical character who comes reasonably close to the description of Stoker's Queen Tera is Sebekneferu, also known as Sobknofru, daughter of the great Pharaoh Amenemhat III. She became Queen, and sole monarch, of Egypt after the death of her brother in the closing years of the Twelfth Dynasty. Cryptically, Stoker describes Queen Tera as a ruler in the Eleventh Dynasty, and her shortened name may have been derived from "Nebtauira" who (according to Flinders Petrie) followed Antef III in the Eleventh Dynasty. Although described as "daughter of Antef, there were several pharaohs of this name in quick succession during the same dynasty; but in Stoker's time, Egyptologists were still arguing about the correct dates, sequence and chronology of the earlier dynasties. There were still many "blank on the map" areas, and Stoker was free to mix fact and fiction to his heart's content. Some of the leading Egyptologists and archaeologists of the day were among the regular guests entertained by Sir Henry Irving and Bram Stoker at the Lyceum Theatre and the Beefsteak Club in London. Stoker would have had plenty of opportunities to discuss the occult and arcane lore of Ancient Egypt with
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