7 Perfume, cigarettes and gilded boards
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Eleanor Dobson
Abstract
This chapter considers ancient Egypt’s decadent associations at the fin de siècle, considering how the iconography of elite goods trickled down into mass consumer culture, taking Guy Boothby’s thriller Pharos the Egyptian (1898; 1899) as its starting point. The titular Pharos produces his own cigarettes and perfumes, which heighten sensations and lead to visions during states of semi-consciousness. Negotiating, on the one hand, decadent circles and the associated culture of recreational drug use at the fin de siècle, and on the other, advertising for mass-market products drawing upon ancient Egypt’s increasing attraction, this chapter identifies how Boothby uses cigarettes and perfume in Pharos the Egyptian to navigate the boundaries between the high- and middlebrow. It also incorporates discussion of the materiality of Boothby’s volume itself. Originally published in instalments in the Windsor Magazine in 1898, Boothby’s text was reissued as a novel in 1899. This chapter also argues that, as with cigarettes and perfume whose advertising displayed such imagery, Boothby’s novel becomes itself an object that is part of a broader material culture.
Abstract
This chapter considers ancient Egypt’s decadent associations at the fin de siècle, considering how the iconography of elite goods trickled down into mass consumer culture, taking Guy Boothby’s thriller Pharos the Egyptian (1898; 1899) as its starting point. The titular Pharos produces his own cigarettes and perfumes, which heighten sensations and lead to visions during states of semi-consciousness. Negotiating, on the one hand, decadent circles and the associated culture of recreational drug use at the fin de siècle, and on the other, advertising for mass-market products drawing upon ancient Egypt’s increasing attraction, this chapter identifies how Boothby uses cigarettes and perfume in Pharos the Egyptian to navigate the boundaries between the high- and middlebrow. It also incorporates discussion of the materiality of Boothby’s volume itself. Originally published in instalments in the Windsor Magazine in 1898, Boothby’s text was reissued as a novel in 1899. This chapter also argues that, as with cigarettes and perfume whose advertising displayed such imagery, Boothby’s novel becomes itself an object that is part of a broader material culture.
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Dedication v
- Contents vii
- List of figures ix
- List of contributors xi
- Acknowledgements xiv
- Introduction 1
- 1 Allamistakeo awakes 20
- 2 Adam Bede 43
- 3 Remembering Mrs Potiphar 68
- 4 Prefiguring the cross 90
- 5 ‘The culminating flower of cat-worship in Egypt’ 114
- 6 ‘A Memnon waiting for the day’ 139
- 7 Perfume, cigarettes and gilded boards 162
- 8 The intelligibility of the past in Bram Stoker’s The Jewel of Seven Stars 185
- Select bibliography 207
- Index 222
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Dedication v
- Contents vii
- List of figures ix
- List of contributors xi
- Acknowledgements xiv
- Introduction 1
- 1 Allamistakeo awakes 20
- 2 Adam Bede 43
- 3 Remembering Mrs Potiphar 68
- 4 Prefiguring the cross 90
- 5 ‘The culminating flower of cat-worship in Egypt’ 114
- 6 ‘A Memnon waiting for the day’ 139
- 7 Perfume, cigarettes and gilded boards 162
- 8 The intelligibility of the past in Bram Stoker’s The Jewel of Seven Stars 185
- Select bibliography 207
- Index 222
