The Last Days of Pompeii

Pompeii, AD 79

Edward Bulwer-Lytton

• Publisher: Aeneas Press
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9785486709357
• Subtopic: Classics
• Index: Literature

Pompeii in the last week of August, AD 79: a Greek, an Egyptian priest of Isis, a blind flower-seller who alone knows the streets in the dark. Bulwer-Lytton wrote it after seeing Bryullov's enormous canvas in Milan, and the excavations gave him his set — the amphitheatre, the House of the Tragic Poet, the sentry at his post. It made Pompeii a Victorian obsession. Twenty-five plates of Roman ruins and street scenes, from Panini's capriccios to Linton's views of the Forum, fix the novel's vanished city in paint.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Chapter I. The Two Gentlemen of Pompeii.
• Chapter II. The Blind Flower-Girl, and the Beauty of Fashion. The Athenian’s Confession. The Reader’s Introduction to Arbaces of Egypt.
• Chapter III. Parentage of Glaucus. Description of the Houses of Pompeii. Classic Revel.
• Chapter IV. The Temple of Isis. Its Priest. The Character of Arbaces Develops Itself.
• Chapter V. More of the Flower-Girl. The Progress of Love.
• Chapter VI. The Fowler Snares Again the Bird that Had Just Escaped, and Sets His Nets for a New Victim.
• Chapter VII. The Gay Life of the Pompeian Lounger. A Miniature Likeness of the Roman Baths.
• Chapter VIII. Arbaces Cogs His Dice with Pleasure and Wins the Game.
• Chapter I. A Flash House in Pompeii, and the Gentlemen of the Classic Ring.
• Chapter II. Two Worthies.
• Chapter III. Glaucus Makes a Purchase That Afterwards Costs Him Dear.
• Chapter IV. The Rival of Glaucus Presses Onward in the Race.
• Chapter V. The Poor Tortoise. New Changes for Nydia.
• Chapter VI. The Happy Beauty and the Blind Slave.
• Chapter VII. Ione Entrapped. The Mouse Tries to Gnaw the Net.
• Chapter VIII. The Solitude and Soliloquy of the Egyptian. His Character Analysed.
• Chapter IX. What Becomes of Ione in the House of Arbaces. The First Signal of the Wrath of the Dread Foe.
• Chapter I. The Forum of the Pompeians. The First Rude Machinery by Which the New Era of the World Was Wrought.
• Chapter II. The Noonday Excursion on the Campanian Seas.
• Chapter III. The Congregation.
• Chapter IV. The Stream of Love Runs on. Whither?
• Chapter V. Nydia Encounters Julia. Interview of the Heathen Sister and Converted Brother. An Athenian’s Notion of Christianity.
• Chapter VI. The Porter. The Girl. And the Gladiator.
• Chapter VII. The Dressing-Room of a Pompeian Beauty. Important Conversation Between Julia and Nydia.
• Chapter VIII. Julia Seeks Arbaces. The Result of That Interview.
• Chapter IX. Storm in the South. The Witch’s Cavern.
• Chapter X. The Lord of the Burning Belt and His Minion. Fate Writes Her Prophecy in Red Letters, but Who Shall Read Them?
• Chapter XI. Progress of Events. The Plot Thickens. The Web is Woven, but the Net Changes Hands.
• Chapter I. Reflections on the Zeal of the Early Christians. Two Men Come to a Perilous Resolve. Walls Have Ears, Particularly Sacred Walls.
• Chapter II. A Classic Host, Cook, and Kitchen. Apaecides Seeks Ione. Their Conversation.
• Chapter III. A Fashionable Party and a Dinner a La Mode in Pompeii.
• Chapter IV. The Story Halts for a Moment at an Episode.
• Chapter V. The Philtre. Its Effect.
• Chapter VI. A Reunion of Different Actors. Streams that Flowed Apparently Apart Rush into One Gulf.
• Chapter VII. In Which the Reader Learns the Condition of Glaucus. Friendship Tested. Enmity Softened. Love the Same, Because the One Loving is Blind.
• Chapter VIII. A Classic Funeral.
• Chapter IX. In Which an Adventure Happens to Ione.
• Chapter X. What Becomes of Nydia in the House of Arbaces. The Egyptian Feels Compassion for Glaucus. Compassion is Often a Very Useless Visitor to the Guilty.
• Chapter XI. Nydia Affects the Sorceress.
• Chapter XII. A Wasp Ventures Into the Spider’s Web.
• Chapter XIII. The Slave Consults the Oracle. They Who Blind Themselves the Blind May Fool. Two New Prisoners Made in One Night.
• Chapter XIV. Nydia Accosts Calenus.
• Chapter XV. Arbaces and Ione. Nydia Gains the Garden. Will She Escape and Save the Athenian?
• Chapter XVI. The Sorrow of Boon Companions for Our Afflictions. The Dungeon and Its Victims.
• Chapter XVII. A Chance for Glaucus.
• Chapter I
• Chapter II. The Amphitheatre.
• Chapter III. Sallust and Nydia’s Letter.
• Chapter IV. The Amphitheatre Once More.
• Chapter V. The Cell of the Prisoner and the Den of the Dead. Grief Unconscious of Horror.
• Chapter VI. Calenus and Burbo. Diomed and Clodius. The Girl of the Amphitheatre and Julia.
• Chapter VII. The Progress of the Destruction.
• Chapter VIII. Arbaces Encounters Glaucus and Ione.
• Chapter IX. The Despair of the Lovers. The Condition of the Multitude.
• Chapter X. The Next Morning. The Fate of Nydia.
• Chapter The Last
• About the Author