The Last Days of Pompeii

For other uses, see The Last Days of Pompeii (disambiguation).

First edition title page
Publisher	Richard Bentley
Publication date	1834

The The Last Days of Pompeii is a novel written by the baron Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1834. It was inspired by the painting The Last Day of Pompei by the Russian painter Karl Briullov Bulwer-Lytton saw in Milan. Once a very widely read book and now relatively neglected, it culminates in the cataclysmic destruction of the city of Pompeii by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.

The novel uses its characters to contrast the decadent culture of 1st-century Rome with both older cultures and coming trends. The protagonist, Glaucus, represents the Greeks who have been subordinated by Rome, and his nemesis Arbaces the still older culture of Egypt. Olinthus is the chief representative of the nascent Christian religion, which is presented favorably but not uncritically. The Witch of Vesuvius, though she has no supernatural powers, shows Bulwer-Lytton's interest in the occult - a theme which would emerge in his later writing, particularly The Coming Race.

A popular sculpture by American sculptor Randolph Rogers, Nydia, the Blind Flower Girl of Pompeii (1856) was based on a character from the book.

Nydia

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

• 1858 - Errico Petrella's opera Jone, with a libretto by Giovanni Peruzzini based upon the novel, premiered at La Scala on January 26. It was very successful and remained in the Italian repertoire well into the 20th century, its last known performance being in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1981.
• 1877 - an ambitious theatrical adaptation was mounted at the Queen's Theatre, Long Acre in London that featured a staged eruption of Vesuvius, an earthquake and a sybaritic Roman feast – the earth did not quake, the volcano did not work, acrobats fell onto the cast below, and the production was an expensive flop.
• 1900 - The Last Days of Pompeii (UK), directed by Walter R. Booth.
• 1908 - The Last Days of Pompeii (Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei) (Italy), directed by Arturo Ambrosio and Luigi Maggi.
• 1913 - The Last Days of Pompeii (Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei) (Italy), directed by Mario Caserini.
• 1926 - The Last Days of Pompeii (Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei) (Italy), directed by Carmine Gallone.
• 1935 - The Last Days of Pompeii, an RKO film, with Preston Foster and Basil Rathbone, which carried a disclaimer that, although the scenes of Vesuvius erupting had been inspired by the novel, the movie did not use its plot or characters.
• 1950 - The Last Days of Pompeii (Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei / Les Derniers Jours de Pompéi) (Italy/France), directed by Marcel L'Herbier and Paolo Moffa.
• 1959 - The Last Days of Pompeii (Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei) (Italy), directed by Sergio Leone.
• 1984 - The Last Days of Pompeii (Italy/UK/U.S.), a television miniseries.
• 2008 - Pompeji (Germany), musical.

Notes and references

• Sherson, Erroll. London's Lost Theatres of the Nineteenth Century, Chapter IX (Ayer Publishing, 1925) ISBN 0405089694

External links

• The Last Days of Pompeii at Project Gutenberg
• The Last Days of Pompeii, at Internet Archive. Scanned books.