Radcliffe Emerson - Personal History

Personal History

Very little of Emerson's life story is revealed until He Shall Thunder in the Sky.

His mother was Lady Isabel Courtenay, daughter of the Earl of Radcliffe (one possible reason he hates his first name). His father, Thomas Emerson, was a good-hearted but easygoing man who failed to satisfy his cold-hearted, ambitious wife. Their marriage had become loveless by the time Radcliffe was born, and after his father died, his mother did her best to "shape" Radcliffe into her ideal of a man, which he vehemently resisted. A small inheritance from a distant relative enabled him to escape his mother's control, and the aristocratic marriage she had arranged for him, and pursue his studies as an Egyptologist. His mother disowned him.

Radcliffe became an Egyptologist, while his younger brother Walter became a philologist. The two frequently led archaeological expeditions to Egypt, where Radcliffe was one of the first (and for a while, few) advocates of a methodological approach to archaeology.

In Crocodile on the Sandbank, during a visit to the Cairo museum, the Emersons encountered Amelia Peabody and her friend, Evelyn Forbes. Radcliffe and Amelia instantly butted heads in an argument, and she considered him a rude and patronizing boor. When he fell ill at their dig in Amarna, however, Amelia not only nursed him back to health, but also took over part of his duties. Grudgingly, he came to respect her abilities, and at the end, realized he was in love with her.

In the later books Amelia refers to Emerson as "the greatest Egyptologist of this or any other age."

A few years after his marriage and Ramses's birth, Emerson tried to make peace with his mother. She refused his attention, but was unable to prevent him from inheriting his grandfather's estate when she died.