This is one of the masterpieces from the golden age of Egyptian
literature in the Middle Kingdom. Although the Tale has been
much studied and quoted, there has never been a full parallel
edition of the manuscripts. This volume fills that gap and provides
a standard text to serve as a basis for future research. For
the edition of the Egyptian text, Richard Parkinson has collated
the transcriptions with the original papyri in Berlin and London,
and proposes a number of new and improved readings. The textual
notes supply facsimiles of problematic passages, offer restorations
for damaged sections, and record the variant readings of previous
scholars. The introduction describes the four manuscripts and
discusses their date and provenance. Richard Parkinson constructs
the first stemma for the textual tradition of the Tale, as well
as presenting a history and bibliography of previous studies.
Richard Parkinson is Lady Wallis Budge Research Fellow
in Egyptology at the University College Oxford and Special Assistant
in the Department of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum
in London.