James P. Allen is the Wilbour Professor of Egyptology at Brown University. He is a former curator of Egyptian Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and President of the International Association of Egyptologists. His previous publications include Genesis in Egypt: The Philosophy of Ancient Egyptian Creation Accounts (1989), The Heqanakht Papyri (2002), and The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts (2005).

Middle Egyptian introduces the reader to the writing system of ancient Egypt and the language of hieroglyphic texts. It contains twenty-six lessons, exercises (with answers), a list of hieroglyphic signs, and a dictionary. It also includes a series of twenty-five essays on the most important aspects of ancient Egyptian history, society, religion and literature. The combination of grammar lessons and cultural essays allows users to not only read hieroglyphic texts but also to understand them, providing readers with the foundation to understand texts on monuments and to read great works of ancient Egyptian literature in the original text. This second edition contains revised exercises and essays, providing an up to date account of current research and discoveries. New illustrations enhance discussions and examples. These additions combine with the previous edition to create a complete grammatical description of the classical language of ancient Egypt for specialists in linguistics and other fields.