Born illegitimate in Bodmin, Cornwall, in 1857 to a member of a poor, working-class family, Wallis Budge overcame all the obstacles he faced to eventually go from being a warehouse clerk with no prospects to the University of Cambridge and Christ's College at a time when there was little or no provision for working-class youths to obtain higher education, to become Keeper in the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum and one of the best known British Egyptologists. The author of 150 books he traveled to Egypt and Mesopotamia during which he collected some of his department's greatest treasures, often using questionable means to get these out of Egypt and Iraq (or Assyria as it was then called). Yet for all his fame many mysteries surround his life and in this work, an attempt is made to find answers to some of these, not least the identity of his father. It examines his often stormy conflicts with other scholars and his relations with women. Budge's life makes fascinating reading, and this work contains much hitherto unpublished material.

Privately published in an edition of 200 unnumbered copies, it has 75 pages, light card covers, is illustrated, fully referenced and indexed.