Player's Egyptian Kings and Queens

John Player & Sons were one of the first UK tobacco companies to include cards of general interest into their packets and one of the most interesting of these, at least to an Egypto-maniac, was their 1911 series entitled "Egyptian Kings & Queens and Classical Deities". 

This 25 card set includes such Egyptian royal luminaries as Ramses III and Queen Hatshepset and certainly forms a very attractive collection. 

Cigarette cards started, in around 1880, as plain pieces of card inserted into cigarette packets, then made of paper, and were known as "stiffeners" as their primary purpose was to reinforce the packet. By 1887 they had been introduced into the British market and by 1901 had proven to be quite the craze with over 300 companies issuing cards of different subject matter and quality. 

Carlton Cinema, Essex Road, London

Designed by architect George Coles the Carlton Cinema opened in 1930 and was still being used as a cinema into the 1970s, since 1962 as part of the ABC chain. It’s history has been less illustrious since with a stint as a bingo hall and then its subsequent abandonment in 2007. The building is currently boarded up and vacant.

The 1930s structure was built on a site that had previously been occupied, since the 1800s, by terraced houses.  C&R Theatres Ltd, owners of the Carlton Cinema chain, purchased the land and got planning permission to build the venue in 1929.

The cinema was opened on 1^st September 1930 by Prince Arthur of Connaught and other audience members, in its 2,266 seater capacity, were the Mayor of Islington. The opening film was “Welcome Danger” staring Harold Lloyd.

Death on the Nile: Images of Egypt

Death on the Nile is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on November 1, 1937 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence and the US edition at $2.00.

With the novel being set in Egypt the front covers can give us plenty of insight into images of Egypt in the twentieth century. Some of the covers, of course, are nothing to do with Egypt - instead focusing on the glamorous woman or the image of Poirot himself. The cover from 1978 is a tie in to the movie starting Peter Ustinov as Hercule and the gorgeous David Niven as Colonel Race. 

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