It takes about twenty minutes to read The Professor's Daughter, a charming and gorgeously illustrated graphic novel by French artists Joann Sfar and Emmanuel Guibert originally published in 1997 and recently reissued in an English translation by First Second, an imprint of Roaring Brook Press. That's more than long enough to become emotionally invested in this madcap love story featuring Lillian Bowell, the daughter of a famous Victorian Egyptologist, and Imhotep IV, a pharaoh a few thousand years her senior. Spoilers ahead ...

Imhotep is stored in a sarcophagus in the Bowell home in Paddington, awaiting delivery to the British Museum. One day Lillian dresses him in top hat and tails and takes him for a walk. Imhotep gets drunk on tea and assaults a gentleman who later turns up at the house with a policeman demanding redress. Lillian inadvertently poisons them with arsenic. When their bodies are discovered by Lillian's father, Imhotep dashes from the house with Lillian, intending to take her to Cairo. At the dock, Lillian is kidnapped by a second, sea-captain mummy who vows to stay at sea until Lillian falls in love with him.

Back in London, Imhotep is a wanted man. He manages to find a hiding place while Scotland Yard rounds up all the city's mummies. When Imhotep learns that Lillian has been taken to sea, he despairs. The sea-captain mummy discovers that Lillian's beau is a mummy and returns to London. When Lillian is reunited with Imhotep, Imhotep recognizes the sea-captain mummy as his father, Imhotep III.

They argue about Lillian, who bears a striking resemblance to the long-dead wife of Imhotep IV. Lillian concludes that Imhotep is merely using her as a substitute for his dead wife. She goes to the police and confesses to the two poisonings. Imhotep attempts to break her out of jail but gets arrested himself. At the trial, Imhotep asserts that because he is a royal personage, he must be judged by Queen Victoria herself.

Meanwhile, the professor and Imhotep III shoot each other in a brougham. The unscathed mummy (he is already dead, after all) tells the bleeding professor that he will seduce the queen and then get her to pardon their children. They manage to get past the gates of Buckingham Palace. Imhotep III, with the now-unconscious professor slung over his shoulder, crashes into the queen's room and proposes to her. When she refuses, he slings her over his other shoulder and sets off for the Tower of London, where Imhotep IV and Lillian are being held.

A scene between the lovers follows in which Lillian confesses her love to Imhotep. His father, meanwhile, pitches the queen into the Thames when he realizes that she will be of no help to him. He steals the keys to the lovers' cell, where the professor finally expires. Imhotep IV exchanges his mummy wrappings for the dead professor's clothing and the pair escapes. The professor, now encased in Imhotep's bandages, is mistaken for him and ends up under glass at the British Museum, where he is visited by Imhotep, Lillian, and their children a few years later.

Along the way, subtle points are made about cultural imperialism, class inequities, the tyranny of fathers, and women's rights during the Victorian period. "I'm an antiquity," says Imhotep IV. "I belong to the country of the one who found me." Lillian complains that she sometimes feels like a possession of her father's. At Lillian's trial, the judge must consider whether she will receive special treatment because of her social standing.

This 64-page fable moves at a cracking pace but you'll want to slow down to enjoy Guibert's elegant ink and watercolor panels. The softness of his brushwork and the impressionistic wash of browns, grays, blues, and reds are a perfect match for the sweet, loopy story. Imhotep IV may be the most dashing pharaoh ever to grace the printed page: think King Tut crossed with Fred Astaire ("dancing by th