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EGYPT'S BELLE EPOQUE  was a period of incredible extravagance during which the Khedive Ismail's Cairo became the mirror image, both architecturally and socially, of decadent Paris. The glamour and hedonism of an era which  is now largely forgotten reached its peak during the magnificent celebrations for the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. Kings and emperors, artists, writers and Europe's most sophisticated flocked to the city.    
............ The dazzling new Cairo was a place of sumptuous palaces and Parisian gardens, where glittering parties were held on the banks of the Nile and where Verdi's Aida would later premiere at the new opera house. But the splendour was short-lived. Only a year after the Suez Canal opened, the Second Empire in France collapsed and the Khedive's excesses plunged Egypt into crippling debt. Ismail was eventually forced to abdicate, leaving Cairo to the British who occupied Egypt in all but name.

From the reviews:

'This riveting account of a now-vanished world brings to life the splendour and decadence of a period in Egypt’s history which is too often forgotten. Written with wit and remarkable immediacy, it tells the tale of Cairo's transformation into the Paris of Africa under the auspices of the founder of modern Egypt, Khedive Ismail.'                
                                                                  Guardian

'This is an enthralling account of a period in Egypt's history now too often forgotten. Trevor Mostyn brings to life a glittering near century which launched Cairo as one of the great cities of the world.'
                                                         Lisa Appignanesi
'Mostyn presents an enticing glimpse of a fascinating but often overlooked era of Egypt’s recent history.'                                                                                                             TLS

'A teeming, vivid portrait'
                                                       Terence Blacker

'Mostyn brings to life a city of near overwhelming opulence, a Middle Eastern mirror image of its Western ‘twin-city’, Paris'

                                 The Good Book Guide, 2007

"….a select parade of juicy tales of extravagance, intrigue and licentiousness that so enliven the history of the Muhammad Ali dynasty"
                                Artemis Cooper, Telegraph, 1989

'Against a background of carelessness and cupidity, Trevor Mostyn paints his picture of the period between the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the revolution organised by Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1952.'
                                   Michael Adams, The Tablet, 1990

"There is much that general readers can learn from this work"
Robin Ostle, The British Journal for Middle East Studies

Egypt's Belle Epoque: Cairo and the Age of the Hedonists
by Trevor Mostyn
Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2006, 216pp
(First published in 1989 by Quartet as Egypt's Belle Epoque: Cairo 1869-1952)

 		   
       
     Cover image: The Khabanija Fountain, Cairo 1845,
      Grigory Tchernezov, Tver Art Gallery, Russia