Some Words With a Mummy by Edgar Allan Poe

Poe’s nerves are playing him up so he takes to bed early with a headache, but when the note arrives, he dresses and hurries to Ponnonner’s house where an eager company is assembled for the unwrapping of an Egyptian Mummy.  

Soon it becomes apparent that this occasion is to be notable for much more than the mere unswathing of a dead Egyptian when someone suggests applying electricity to the corpse.

The result is that the Mummy returns to life.

Mummies of more recent stories, once returned to life, usually embark on a wild orgy of violence, frequently kidnapping some hapless female on the way.

Poe’s Mummy is of more civilized stuff and, once recovered from the indignity of having a live wire inserted between its toes, soon settles to discussing politics and engineering with the company. Long before this, most readers will have concluded that Poe was writing with tongue firmly lodged in cheek.

  

Hugh Lamb notes that although most of Poe’s stories have been repeatedly anthologized  this one had not seen print for twenty-five years until he included it in his anthology Return from the Dead in 1976.  Not for the first time I've been surprised by the readability of Poe’s fiction which usually bears comparison with much more contemporary stuff.