A wealthy retired businessman and art collector from New York and Newport, R.I., Theodore M. Davis financed a series of archeological excavations in Egypt between 1889 and 1912. Avid, but not necessarily disciplined in his approach, he supported a remarkably productive series of excavations at Thebes and, in the work for which he is best remembered, in the Valley of the Kings. On many of these expeditions, Davis was accompanied by his relative, Emma B. Andrews.

The diary that Andrews kept during these expeditions is valuable on two scores. First, at its best, it provides a literate and often detailed record of an adventurous American woman traveling in fin de siecle Egypt and (to a lesser degree) Italy and her encounters with life in the colonial British settlements along the Nile. Second, it provides some important details on the appearance of tombs in the Valley of the Kings as they were first unearthed, with interesting comments upon Davis and a number of his fellow Egyptologists.