Mystery writer Barbara Mertz dies at 85
By LISA TOLIN, Associated Press
NEW YORK — Barbara Mertz, a best-selling mystery writer who wrote dozens of novels under two pen names, has died. She was 85.
Mertz died Thursday morning at her home, in Frederick, Md., her daughter Elizabeth told her publisher HarperCollins.
Mertz wrote more than 35 mysteries under the name Elizabeth Peters, including her most popular series about a daring Victorian archaeologist named Amelia Peabody. She also wrote 29 suspense novels under the pen name Barbara Michaels, and under her own name, she wrote nonfiction books about ancient Egypt...
From Tim Cashion's 1996-1997 report of the Membership Office in the OI Annual Report
The year was highlighted by Romancing the Past, a gala benefit held at the Drake Hotel on 19 May 1997, with a keynote address by Breasted Society member and author Barbara Mertz. Jill Carlotta Maher, also a Breasted Society member and a loyal supporter of many Institute activities, was honored as the first recipient of the James Henry Breasted Medallion. The dinner, attended by 353 people and gen- erating $100,000 in net income for the Legacy Campaign, featured a silent auction and dancing. The music of Stanley Paul proved as compelling as the auction items, as someone pulled away from the dance floor long enough to bid $10,000 for a role as a minor character in the next Amelia Peabody mystery by Elizabeth Peters (aka Barbara Mertz. We look forward to the challenge of trying to match this unforget- table evening.Barbara Mertz studied Egyptology at the Oriental Institute completing a dissertation: Certain titles of the Egyptian queens and their bearing on the hereditary right to the throne in 1952. She wrote immensely popular mystery and suspense novels under the names Elizabeth Peters and Barbara Michaels.
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2 comments:
This is a shame. Barbara was pretty damn talented both as an Egyptologist and as a mystery writer (as Elizabeth Peters, the Ameila Peabody series) and very generous to the Institute, not only directly but by allowing us to auction off a bit "role" in some of the later novels at our fund-raisers. The first year we did, my boss thought I was nuts, but gave her blessing. One of the stalwarts wandered through the silent auction, casually wrote $10,000 as her bid and then had Barbara use a friend's name for the role. The friend thought it was pretty cool to get a signed copy of the new novel and damn near died when she saw her own name on page whatever it was. My boss decided I was marginally less nuts. Good luck, Barbara, on your way to your ka.
This is a shame. Barbara was pretty damn talented both as an Egyptologist and as a mystery writer (as Elizabeth Peters, the Ameila Peabody series) and very generous to the Institute, not only directly but by allowing us to auction off a bit "role" in some of the later novels at our fund-raisers. The first year we did, my boss thought I was nuts, but gave her blessing. One of the stalwarts wandered through the silent auction, casually wrote $10,000 as her bid and then had Barbara use a friend's name for the role. The friend thought it was pretty cool to get a signed copy of the new novel and damn near died when she saw her own name on page whatever it was. My boss decided I was marginally less nuts. Good luck, Barbara, on your way to your ka.
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