By the Gods Beloved

Baroness Orczy's By the Gods Beloved begins with a schoolboy rivalry that opens into a lifelong fascination with ancient Egypt. The narrator's unlikely friendship with the brilliant, solitary Hugh Tankerville leads him from playground combat to a hidden world in suburban Hammersmith: a neglected old garden, a house crowded with mummies, relics, and inscriptions, and the eccentric study of Hugh's father, Mr. Tankerville, a devoted Egyptologist obsessed with the lost history of Kamt and the vanished age after Queen Neit-akrit. As the years pass, the narrator returns to find Hugh consumed by a vast scholarly labor, determined to vindicate his father's reputation. At last Hugh summons him to witness the completion of a monumental reconstruction from fragmentary parchment, a discovery that seems to unlock an ancient secret. Through vivid, dreamlike testimony, the story conjures pharaohs, priests, exile, jealousy, and betrayal, until the past feels alarmingly alive. When Hugh confronts the high priest Ur-tasen at court and the people hail him like a god, the novel's mystery becomes a struggle for power, faith, and destiny. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.