Motel of the Mysteries 1979 David Macaulay Illustrated Satire

🔍 Motel of the Mysteries by David Macaulay (1979, Houghton Mifflin) — a satirical mock-archaeological account of excavating a 1970s American motel as if it were an ancient Egyptian tomb. This copy is in very good plus or better condition with tight binding and crisp covers.

QUICK FACTS

• Author: David Macaulay (b. 1946), British-born American author and illustrator
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston
• Year: 1979 (first edition, copyright on back cover)
• Format: Large-format paperback, all black-and-white illustrations
• Pages: 96 | ISBN: 0-395-28425-2
• Condition: Very good plus or better — see full report below

THE STORY

Set in the year 4022 AD, centuries after an ecological catastrophe wiped out North American civilization in 1985, Motel of the Mysteries follows amateur archaeologist Howard Carson (a satire of Tutankhamun excavator Howard Carter) as he discovers an intact burial chamber — actually Room 26 of the Toot ‘N’ C’mon Motor Lodge. With his assistant Harriet Burton, Carson excavates and catalogues the treasures within, interpreting every everyday motel object as a sacred artifact: the Do Not Disturb sign becomes the Sacred Seal, the toilet bowl becomes the Sacred Urn, and the television becomes the Great Altar.

The book is organized in four sections — World History, the Excavation, the Exhibition Catalogue of discovered artifacts, and a gift shop catalogue of souvenirs — each rendered in Macaulay’s signature detailed pen-and-ink cross-hatching style. The humor works on two levels: it is laugh-out-loud funny, but it also makes a sharp point about how archaeological interpretation is inevitably shaped by the interpreter’s own cultural assumptions.

THIS EDITION

This is the original Houghton Mifflin printing, copyright 1979. The large-format layout gives Macaulay’s detailed illustrations room to breathe — the cross-hatched drawings occupy at least half the book’s 96 pages. The back cover retains the original price sticker and ISBN 0-395-28425-2.

COVER ART & ILLUSTRATIONS

The front cover features a striking royal blue background with gold lettering and a central pen-and-ink illustration of a huddled figure before a locked doorway — rendered in Macaulay’s dense cross-hatching technique that creates dramatic light-and-shadow contrast. The interior illustrations are entirely black-and-white, ranging from full-page archaeological diagrams with numbered artifacts to narrative scenes of Carson and his team at work. Notable images include detailed cross-sections of the burial chamber with labeled finds, and close-up views of interpreted objects like the Sacred Urn and Sacred Seal.

WHY IT MATTERS

• David Macaulay is a Caldecott Medal winner, known for Cathedral, City, Castle, and Pyramid — all books that use detailed illustration to explain how things work
• First edition with ISBN 0-395-28425-2 — increasingly collectible as Macaulay’s early works gain recognition
• Widely cited as a classic of satirical illustration and as unexpectedly insightful commentary on archaeological methodology and cultural interpretation

FREQUENTLY ASKED

What edition is this? Original Houghton Mifflin printing, 1979. ISBN 0-395-28425-2. Large-format paperback with 96 pages of text and pen-and-ink illustrations.

What condition is it in? Very good plus or better. No writing, no loose or torn pages. Binding tight, text block and covers very crisp. Store price tag on back cover lower barcode.

Is this the book or the movie? This is David Macaulay’s original 1979 illustrated book. There is no film adaptation.

FOR COLLECTORS

Macaulay’s illustrated books from the late 1970s have become increasingly sought after, and Motel of the Mysteries occupies a unique niche — it is his most purely comic work, and the large-format layout with full-page cross-hatched illustrations makes it visually distinctive among his catalog.

CONDITION: Very good plus or better. No writing, no loose, torn or folded pages. No writing. Binding tight, text block and covers very crisp. Store price tag on back cover lower barcode. See accompanying images for full condition details.

ABOUT: Published circa 1984 by Houghton Mifflin, 96 pages. All pages in black and white.

Will ship promptly, carefully packaged.

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