author
Margaret Benson
1865–1916
Best known for pairing literary talent with groundbreaking work in Egypt, this English writer lived a life shaped by scholarship, travel, and curiosity. She is remembered both for her books and for becoming one of the first women to excavate in Egypt.
3 Audiobooks
The Soul of a Cat, and Other Stories
by Margaret Benson
The Court of the King, and Other Studies
by Margaret Benson
Subject to Vanity
by Margaret Benson
About the author
Margaret Benson was an English author and Egyptologist born on June 16, 1865, and she died on May 13, 1916. She was the daughter of Edward White Benson, who became Archbishop of Canterbury, and she grew up in a notably literary family that included the writers E. F. Benson and A. C. Benson.
She studied at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and wrote fiction, essays, and memoir-like works, but her life also took an unusual turn through archaeology. She became best known for excavating the Precinct of Mut at Karnak in the 1890s, work that helped make her one of the earliest women to lead an excavation in Egypt.
That mix of literary and historical interests gives her work a distinctive place in late Victorian culture. She is remembered not only as a novelist and essayist, but also as a determined scholar whose career crossed boundaries that were still closed to many women of her time.