Edwards photographed for her American lecture tour, 1890. Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards (June 7, 1831 - April 15, 1892) was an English novelist, journalist, traveller and Egyptologist. Her early novels were well received, but it was Barbara's History (1864), a novel of bigamy, that established her reputation as a novelist. In the winter of 1873-1874, accompanied by several friends, she toured Egypt, discovering a fascination with the land and its cultures, both ancient and modern. While at Abu Simbel, a member of her party discovered a previously unknown sanctuary that bore her name for some time afterwards. On returning to England she wrote about her exploration and excavations, entitled: A Thousand Miles Up the Nile (1876). Enhanced with her own hand drawn illustrations, the travelogue became an immediate bestseller. She became a public advocate for the research and preservation of the ancient monuments and, in 1882, co-founded the Egypt Exploration Fund, known today as the Egypt Exploration Society. She abandoned her other literary work to concentrate solely on Egyptology. She embarked on an ambitious lecture tour of the United States in 1889-1890. The content of these lectures was later published under the title Pharaohs, Fellahs, and Explorers. After catching influenza she died in 1892 at the age of 60.