Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Egyptian | 1945 | Mika Waltari | Buy |
| 2 | A Nail Merchant at Nightfall | 1949 | Mika Waltari | Buy |
| 3 | A Stranger Came to the Farm | 1952 | Mika Waltari | Buy |
| 4 | The Etruscan | 1955 | Mika Waltari | Buy |
| 5 | The Dark Angel | 1963 | Mika Waltari | Buy |
Mika Waltari’s standalone novels span centuries and civilizations, from the courts of ancient Egypt to the siege of Constantinople in 1453, but they share a consistent sensibility. His protagonists are typically men of learning or medicine placed at the center of historical upheaval, narrating their own experience with a combination of personal honesty and historical awareness.
The Egyptian, his first and most famous novel in this group, follows the physician Sinuhe across decades of Egyptian history during the reign of Akhenaten. The novel was unusual at the time for its psychological depth and for treating ancient history with the kind of close human observation more common in literary fiction than in historical adventure. The Etruscan and The Dark Angel apply similar methods to other periods, with The Dark Angel offering what many consider his most emotionally concentrated work, set during the final days of the Byzantine Empire.
A Nail Merchant at Nightfall and A Stranger Came to the Farm are shorter and less frequently discussed but give a sense of Waltari’s range. Read together, the five standalones show a writer consistently drawn to the pressure points of history, the moments when one world ends and another begins.