The weird of the wanderer: Being the papyrus records of some incidents in one of the previous lives of Mr. Nicholas Crabbe

About this book

The work is a Victorian‑era fantasy framed as a scholarly correspondence, presenting the “papyrus records” of a mysterious past life of Mr Nicholas Crabbe. It opens with an elaborate dedication that lists a litany of academic honors before slipping into a mock‑formal letter from a Welsh grandmaster to an Oxford professor, describing a recent archaeological foray in Armenia. The narrator recounts the discovery of a concealed rock‑tomb, its richly ornamented marble and cedar doors, and the astonishing contents, a perfectly preserved mummy, a late‑nineteenth‑century revolver, a gold watch, and ancient papyri. The prose is dense with cataloguing detail, ancient‑Greek inscriptions, and a blend of historical and speculative elements that hint at temporal dislocation, fitting the book’s classification as fantasy fiction with time‑travel themes.

The voice is that of a learned, slightly pompous gentleman of the late nineteenth century, employing a formal epistolary style peppered with classical allusions and technical description. Its language reflects the period’s fascination with archaeology, antiquarian scholarship, and the exotic, while the occasional humorous aside softens the erudition. Readers who enjoy immersive, historically flavored fantasy, especially those who appreciate intricate world‑building, scholarly intrigue, and the uncanny mingling of modern artifacts with ancient settings, will find this curious manuscript an engaging, if demanding, adventure.

Opening lines

ROMAN OF ROME, SENATOR OF THE KINGDOM, KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF CIVIL MERIT OF SAVOY, OFFICER OF THE ORDER OF ST. MAURICE AND ST. LAZARUS, COMMANDER OF THE ORDER OF THE CROWN OF ITALY, D.C.L. (honoris causâ) in the Universities of Oxford, Athens, Cracow; Professor Emeritus in the University of Pisa and the Royal Higher Institute of Florence; National-Member of the Royal Academy of the Lincei, and of the Royal Academies of Sciences of Naples and Turin; Academic-Correspondent of the Royal Academy della Crusca; Correspondent-Member of the Royal Institute of Lombardy and the Veneto, of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Bologna, of the Royal Academies of Munich and Copenhagen, of the Imperial Academies of Vienna and Petersburgh; Foreign Member of the Institute of France; Ordinary Member of the German Archæological Institute of Rome, of the Archæological Society of Athens, of the Syllogos …

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