MURRAY, Margaret Alice.

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The Splendour That was Egypt. First edition, first impression, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "May Isis open a happy year. M. A. Murray, 1949". Murray wrote several works of Egyptology for a wider audienc, this being the most enduringly popular.Murray is best known for her pioneering works on the history of witchcraft: The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (1924) and The God of the Witches (1933). An archaeologist and Egyptologist by training, Murray (1863-1963) was the first woman to be appointed as a lecturer of archaeology in Britain, working at UCL from 1898 to 1935. She was appointed a fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute in 1926 and a member of the Folk-Lore Society in 1927, acting as its president from 1953 to 1955.Murray was a forceful person. "Her strength of character was shown in her success in the hitherto entirely male world of professional Egyptologists. She was determined to do whatever she could to improve the conditions of women as shown in her time at University College by her undemonstrative but unfailing support for her female colleagues and pupils. Furthermore she ventured into territory not then considered suitable for women by her involvement in anthropology" (ODNB).

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