An abridged and illustrated edition of Budge's classic translation, now considered a bit out of date. The plates are very nicely done, if some are a bit small, and most of the footnotes from the original edition have been cut for clarity. Nicely done, but could've used some more or the original material and made some of the detail pictures a little larger and placed closer to the translated text. ( )

Okay, this was an amazing read. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, an it made everything so much clearer about how the Ancient Egyptians viewed death and the afterlife. I highly recommend this as a read. ( )

This book is excellently researched and fascinating. Well worth reading if you are interested in the Ancient Egyption Gods. ( )

In the film, "Stargate," Daniel Jackson said, "Someone must have been using Budge. I don't know why they still print it." He was, of course, referring to Budge's Dictionaries of Ancient Egyptian, but the same might be said for his translation of Ani's "Book of the Dead."

In his time, Budge was an important Egyptologist, and no one can deny that he advanced the study of Ancient Egypt significantly. But his time was 100 years ago, and enormous strides have been made in the study of the Ancient Egyptian language. If you're interested in seeing the current state of the art, then I suggest that you get a copy of Gardiner's translation. It is based on the Budge's unsurpassed photographs of Papyrus Ani; however, today, Gardiner's grammar of Ancient Egyptian is what almost all modern, English-speaking Egyptologists use, together with Faulkner's Dictionary of Middle Egyptian.

Why do I have this book? Easy. Once upon a time, before I studied Ancient Egyptian (which happened before Stargate was released), I thought Budge was the only game in town. I keep it around to remind me that there was once a time when we didn't know what we do now, and in memory of the man who helped create and maintain the British Museum's splendid collection. ( )

This was intended for Egyptologists. It is not for people who are simply interested in Egypt and Egyptian Myth and Religion. He has also fallen out of favor with modern Egyptologists because his translations are not sufficiently specific to the time period of these books. ( )