The Story of the Amulet profits greatly from Nesbit's deep research into ancient civilisations in general and that of ancient Egypt in particular. The book is dedicated to Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, the translator of the Egyptian Book of the Dead and Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities of the British Museum, with whom she met to discuss the history of the ancient Near East while writing the book. The Amulet is sentient and is named Ur Hekau Setcheh; this is a genuine Ancient Egyptian name. The hieroglyphics written on the back of the Amulet are also authentic. Amulet coincidentally appeared the same year as the first instalment of another story involving children viewing different periods of history, Rudyard Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill.

The Story of the Amulet is a novel for children, written in 1906 by English author Edith Nesbit. At the beginning of this book the children's father, a journalist, has gone overseas to cover the war in Manchuria. Their mother has gone to Madeira to recuperate from an illness, taking with her their younger brother, the Lamb. The children are living with an old Nurse who has set up a boardinghouse in central London. Her only remaining boarder is a scholarly Egyptologist who has filled his bedsit with ancient artefacts. During the course of the book, the children get to know the "poor learned gentleman" and befriend him and call him Jimmy. Cook's house is in Fitzrovia, the district of London near the British Museum, which Nesbit accurately conveys as having bookstalls and shops filled with unusual merchandise. In one of these shops the children find the Psammead. It had been captured by a trapper, who failed to recognise it as a magical being. The terrified creature cannot escape, for it can only grant wishes to others, not to itself. Using a ruse, the children persuade the shopkeeper to sell them the "mangy old monkey," and they free their old friend.

Edith Nesbit (15 August 1858—4 May 1924) was an English author and poet; she published her books for children under the name of E. Nesbit. She wrote or collaborated on over 63 books of fiction for children. She was also a political activist and co-founded the Fabian Society, a socialist organisation later affiliated to the Labour Party. She created an innovative body of work that combined realistic, contemporary children in real-world settings with magical objects – what would now be classed as contemporary fantasy – and adventures and sometimes travel to fantastic worlds. Nesbit also wrote for adults, including eleven novels, short stories and four collections of horror stories.