Some Words with a Mummy

The second and third sarcophagi are removed to reveal the body, placed in a papyrus sheath, covered in plaster and decorated with painting and gold gilt.

Allamistakeo explains how he came to be a mummy – ancient Egyptians had a significantly longer life span than modern men, about one thousand years.

He convincingly upholds the vast superiority of his own culture in all aspects, ending with gesturing at the clothes they have dressed him in and grinning when they mention costume.

The narrator, having gone home and gone back to bed (or dreamt that he has done so), awakes the following morning, decides that he is unhappy with his own time and circumstances, and resolves to go to Ponnoner's to get embalmed for a couple hundred years.

In January 1845, Columbian Magazine listed "Some Words with a Mummy" as scheduled for publication; Poe likely pulled the article when he was offered more money for it elsewhere.

[1] It was ultimately published in the April 1845 edition of The American Review,[2] which also included Poe's revised poems "The Valley of Unrest" and "The City in the Sea".

[10] In 2019, a theater organ-based Electro Swing comic opera based on the story was debuted with music by Richard deCosta.

Published in The American Review , April 1845, Vol. I, No. IV.
First known image of a revived Egyptian mummy in an 1852 UK publication of "Some Words with a Mummy".