Monthly Archives: December 2018

Sing it with Stella

From The Sphinx in 1939/40, a series of soldierly song-themed ads for Egypt’s very own Stella beer.

001 Stella ad Sphinx

002 Stella ad Sphinx

003 Stella ad Sphinx

004 Stella ad Sphinx

For an enthusiastic appreciation of Stella and its history visit the Photorientalist site.

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A Christmas Sphinx

Back in August I wrote a post about the Cairo early 20th-century society weekly The Sphinx. I was excited because I had just discovered ten or so issues of it in the newspaper archives of the British Library. Well, I’m just back from Cairo where I have been working in the archives of the American University and what did I find there but almost a whole run of the paper in bound volumes from 1902 to 1947. The project I was working on (of which more at a future date) didn’t allow me to spend much time reading the Sphinxes but I did take plenty of photos of articles, graphics and pages. I’ll be posting some of this material in the coming weeks but to start off with here’s the complete issue from exactly one hundred years ago this week.

As you’ll see (click to enlarge the images), the pages contain many familiar names, including Miss Devonshire, who used to give tours of Islamic architecture to soldiers and whose book Rambles in Cairo was a bestseller for the Egyptian publishing house of Schindler. There is also an obituary for Lord Edward Cecil, whose entertaining The Leisure of an Egyptian Official was published posthumously in 1921, and, under Social and Personal, a brief mention of Governor-General Sir Lee Stack, who six years later would be assassinated while being driven through Cairo. Note also the ad for land and villas for sale in Maadi, marketed as ‘A country resort for summer and winter’.

001 The Sphinx 21 Dec 1918

002 The Sphinx 21 Dec 1918

003 The Sphinx 21 Dec 1918

004 The Sphinx 21 Dec 1918

005 The Sphinx 21 Dec 1918

006 The Sphinx 21 Dec 1918

007 The Sphinx 21 Dec 1918

008 The Sphinx 21 Dec 1918

009 The Sphinx 21 Dec 1918

010 The Sphinx 21 Dec 1918

011 The Sphinx 21 Dec 1918

012 The Sphinx 21 Dec 1918

013 The Sphinx 21 Dec 1918

014 The Sphinx 21 Dec 1918

015 The Sphinx 21 Dec 1918

016 The Sphinx 21 Dec 1918

017 The Sphinx 21 Dec 1918

018 The Sphinx 21 Dec 1918

019 The Sphinx 21 Dec 1918

020 The Sphinx 21 Dec 1918

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