When people talk about the late, great Anne Rice, the conversation almost always starts and ends with Lestat. You know the vibe. Velvety waistcoats, New Orleans humidity, and enough vampire angst to fuel a thousand goth clubs. But tucked away in 1989, right between the release of The Queen of the Damned and The Witching Hour, Rice dropped a standalone novel that felt totally different. Anne Rice The Mummy, or more accurately, The Mummy, or Ramses the Damned, is kind of the black sheep of her early bibliography. It isn't a brooding meditation on immortality. Honestly? It’s a high-octane, slightly trashy, incredibly fun Edwardian romp that reads more like an Indiana Jones movie directed by someone obsessed with silk sheets and ancient history.
I remember picking this up and expecting the slow-burn philosophical dread of Interview with the Vampire. Nope. Not even close. Instead, you get Ramses the Second waking up in 1914 London, drinking a gallon of tea, and immediately falling in love with a shipping heiress named Julie Stratford. It’s wild.
What Anne Rice The Mummy Got Right About Immortality
Most mummy stories are predictable. A bunch of dusty archaeologists break into a tomb, someone ignores a curse written in big scary letters, and a bandaged guy starts shuffling around killing people in slow motion. Rice threw that entire trope in the trash. Her version of Ramses isn’t a rotting corpse. Because he drank an "elixir of life" thousands of years ago, he’s basically a sun-bronzed god who is very, very awake.
This creates a fascinating dynamic.
Ramses isn't some mindless monster. He is a polyglot polymath who is absolutely obsessed with the modern world. Watching him discover things we take for granted—like lightbulbs, cars, and the sheer speed of 20th-century life—is where the book actually shines. Rice captures that sense of wonder better than almost anyone. He’s a man out of time, but instead of moping about it, he wants to eat everything, read everything, and see everything.
But it wouldn't be an Anne Rice novel without a massive, catastrophic mistake fueled by loneliness.
Enter the resurrection of Cleopatra.
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If you haven't read it, the middle act of Anne Rice The Mummy is where things go from "fun historical romance" to "absolute body horror nightmare." Ramses uses the elixir to bring back the long-dead Queen of Egypt. But since she’s been dead for two thousand years, she doesn't come back quite right. It’s messy. It’s gross. It’s quintessential Rice.
The Problem With the Elixir
In the world of Ramses the Damned, immortality isn't a gift. It's a biological fluke. The elixir doesn't just keep you alive; it makes you nearly indestructible. You can't be burned. You can't be stabbed. You just are.
Rice explores the psychological weight of this in a way that feels more grounded than her vampire lore. In her vampire chronicles, the "Dark Gift" comes with a side of religious trauma and bloodlust. For Ramses, the burden is simply memory. He remembers the sand. He remembers the old gods. And now, he has to navigate a world that thinks he’s just a weirdly handsome guy with a fake passport.
Why This Book Disappeared (And Then Came Back)
For decades, The Mummy was a one-off. Fans begged for a sequel, but Rice moved on to witches and spirits and more vampires. It felt like a fever dream from the late 80s.
Then, out of nowhere in 2017, she returned to the series with her son, Christopher Rice. They gave us The Passion of Cleopatra and later The Reign of Osiris. It was a shock to the system. Most writers don't go back to a standalone world after nearly thirty years.
The sequels changed the tone. They leaned harder into the global stakes and the supernatural politics, but for many purists, nothing beats that original 1989 atmosphere. There’s something special about the way the first book handles the contrast between the dusty British Museum and the heat of the Egyptian desert.
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The Cleopatra Factor: Horror vs. Romance
Let’s talk about Cleopatra. Most media portrays her as this ultimate, sophisticated beauty. Rice writes her as a literal force of nature—and eventually, a monster.
When Ramses brings her back, he isn't doing it out of love. He’s doing it out of a desperate, crushing need to not be the only one of his kind. It’s selfish. The result is a creature that is part-Queen, part-zombie, and entirely insane. The scenes where Cleopatra wanders through London, confused and violent, are some of the most effective horror Rice ever wrote.
It’s a sharp contrast to Julie Stratford.
- Julie: Represents the future, the Edwardian era’s shift toward independent women, and a soft kind of modernity.
- Cleopatra: Represents the decaying, inescapable weight of the past.
- Ramses: Stuck right in the middle, trying to bridge the gap.
How to Approach the Series Today
If you're looking to dive into the world of Anne Rice The Mummy now, you have to adjust your expectations. This isn't "prestige" literature. It's a supernatural thriller with a lot of feelings.
- Read the 1989 original first. Don't skip it. The prose is peak Rice—flowery, dense, and incredibly descriptive.
- Ignore the movie rumors. There have been whispers of a film or TV adaptation for thirty years. Nothing has ever quite stuck. It’s probably for the best; the budget required to make Cleopatra look "correct" would be astronomical.
- Pay attention to the food. Weirdly, Rice spends a lot of time describing what Ramses eats. It’s her way of showing his reconnection to the physical world.
- Brace for the ending. The first book ends on a cliffhanger that stayed unresolved for a generation. Luckily, you can just buy the next one now.
The Cultural Impact of Ramses
While Lestat became a cultural icon for the disaffected youth, Ramses remains a bit of a cult secret. But you can see his influence everywhere. The 1999 movie The Mummy with Brendan Fraser? It owes a huge debt to Rice’s reimagining of the creature as a romantic, powerful lead rather than a shambling corpse in rags.
Rice took the Egyptian mythos and stripped away the "Orientalism" of early 20th-century pulp fiction, replacing it with a sense of genuine history and tragedy. Ramses isn't a villain. He’s a king who simply refused to die.
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The book also deals with the ethics of archaeology. Julie’s father, Lawrence, starts the book by discovering the tomb, but the narrative quickly shifts to the idea that these artifacts aren't just things to be put in glass cases. They are remnants of living, breathing people.
Actionable Ways to Experience the Lore
If you want to get the most out of this specific corner of the "Rice-verse," start by visiting the British Museum’s Egyptian collection—online or in person. Look at the colossal statues. Try to imagine one of them standing up, putting on a suit, and asking for a scotch and soda. That is the essence of the character.
You should also look for the comic book adaptation from the early 90s. The art is fantastic and captures the "glam-horror" aesthetic that defined that era of Rice’s career.
Ultimately, The Mummy, or Ramses the Damned serves as a reminder that Anne Rice was more than just the "vampire lady." She was a historian of the heart. She understood that whether it's 3000 BC or 1914 AD, people are driven by the same things: a fear of being alone, a hunger for power, and a desperate hope that death isn't the final word.
To truly appreciate the scope of this story, read it during a thunderstorm. Turn off your phone. Let the melodrama wash over you. It’s a relic of a time when books were allowed to be big, messy, and unapologetically romantic.
For the next steps in your journey through Rice's work, track down a first-edition paperback. The cover art alone—usually featuring a dramatic, shadowed face and gold foil—is a masterpiece of 80s publishing. Once you finish the first novel, move directly into The Passion of Cleopatra to see how her son, Christopher, updated the voice for a modern audience. The transition is fascinating; the prose becomes leaner, the action faster, but the soul of Ramses remains unchanged. Stay away from the fan-fiction forums until you've finished the third book, as the twists in The Reign of Osiris are easy to spoil and genuinely surprising.