A fascinating personal account of archaeology and travel in the interwar era in Palestine.

Olga Tufnell was a British archaeologist working in Egypt, Cyprus, and Palestine in the 1920s and 1930s—a period often described as a golden age of archaeological discovery. For the first time, this book presents Tufnell’s account of her experiences in her own words. Based largely on letters, the text is accompanied by dozens of photographs that shed light on her personal experiences of travel and dig life at this extraordinary time. Introductory material by John D.M. Green and Ros Henry provides the social, historical, biographical, and archaeological context, as the letters offer new insights into the social and professional networks and history of archaeological research in Palestine under the British Mandate. They provide insights into the role of foreign archaeologists, relationships with local workers and inhabitants, and the colonial framework within which they operated during turbulent times. This book will be an important resource for those studying the history of archaeology in the Eastern Mediterranean, particularly for the sites of Qau el-Kebir, Tell Fara, Tell el-‘Ajjul and Tell ed-Duweir (ancient Lachish). Moreover, Tufnell’s lively style makes this a fascinating personal account of archaeology and travel in the interwar era.
 

Letters, poems, and fragments of a journal are the only first-hand reflection we have of a personality of major importance in the life of Ralph Waldo Emerson, that of the beautiful and gifted Ellen Louisa Tucker, whom he married in 1829. Blithe, humorous, full of charm and candor, the engaging seventeen-year-old had captured wholly the heart of the serious young minister. The depth and transforming effect on him of their happy love is a universally acknowledged biographical fact, as is the tragic, shattering effect of her early death in 1831.Emerson's letters to Ellen Tucker have been destroyed, but several of his poems to her--two of them hitherto unpublished--are included with her letters in this volume. This romantic chronicle of two intelligent, active young people takes on a poignant significance as a monument to a love that affected Emerson profoundly during the years of his most critical personal decisions.The letters are owned by the Ralph Waldo Emerson Memorial Association. They are edited and presented here by Emerson's great-granddaughter, a trustee of the Association, as the most direct commemoration possible of a vital experience, intimate and central to the Emerson story.