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MOSES, PRINCE OF EGYPT by Howard Fast

MOSES, PRINCE OF EGYPT

By

Pub Date: March 20th, 1958
Publisher: Crown

In 1949 Dorothy Wilson's Prince of Egypt (Westminster) gave the story of a youth brought up in the belief that he was of the blood of the and a picture of what the court life and the training for the role of a prince would be. In 1951 came Sholem Asch's Moses (Putnam), which would seem to be designed to pick up the threads and continue the story through Moses' life as a reluctant leader, who brought the Israelites out of bondage, who gave them the laws which kept them alive in the wilderness. Together, these books produced a rounded and challenging portrait of a great figure in Biblical history...Now comes Fast's Mases. Prince of Egypt which deepens the portrait, with a more intimate study of the conflicts within the young prince, as he went through the training, suffered the gibes of his ""brothers"", learned the bitter truth of his origins, and -- in exile with the Egyptian army -- found himself, and laid the groundwork for his subsequent role. There is considerable duplication here of the Wilson material, though scholarship and archaeological findings of the last decade have given this more substance and roots. Of the Asch section of Moses' story, there is as yet nothing; here is the young Moses, growing from boyhood to manhood, the years of preparation only. The enormous vitality of the Moses' figure once again proves itself able to sustain this third biographical panel, and Fast has once again- as in My Glorious Brothers particularly, been able to recapture an ancient half legendary- half historical figure of majestic proportions and clothe it in a kind f contemporary life.