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The Last Days of Pompeii Kindle Edition

3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 77 ratings

Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) was a prolific novelist, poet and playwright in his day; in modern times, his work is considered much as Lovecraft described: “large doses of turgid rhetoric and empty romanticism.



Originally published in 1834, "The Last Days of Pompeii" itself was probably the first novelization of the catastrophic event.  The city was rediscovered in the mid-1700s and archaeological excavations followed soon after.  Bulwer-Lytton was inspired to write his novel by the painting
The Last Day of Pompeii by Karl Briullov, painted in the early 1830s.



"The Last Days of Pompeii" tells the story of the Athenian Glaucus, his love, the beautiful Ione, and a blind flower-girl Nydia, who is secretly in love with Glaucus.  Threatening the love of Glaucus and Ione is Ione’s guardian, the decadent and deceitful Egyptian Arbaces, who lusts after Ione himself.



The descriptions of the city itself are fascinating: Bulwer-Lytton seems to have spent much time researching the actual ruins of Pompeii, and his characters are housed in buildings that had apparently been uncovered in archaeological excavations.



"The Last Days of Pompeii" was one of the most popular English historical novels of the nineteenth century.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07RZDYJ12
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ E-BOOKARAMA (June 29, 2024)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 29, 2024
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3067 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 420 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1478116773
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 77 ratings

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Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton
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Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5 stars
77 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on July 28, 2020
    This is one of those books like Ben-Hur: everybody's heard of it, everybody's seen 1 or 2 movies of it, but nobody I know has ever actually read it. It's a proper, cultured, genteel British read, but with more than a little Lord Byron-esque intrigue, violence, and sexual innuendo thrown in, haha. The author was inspired to write it after walking around the recently-uncovered ruins of Pompeii in the late 1820s, and the book is completely faithful to the town, down to the smallest details found in various buried mansions and temples. It is, in a real sense, a tribute to the people who lived and died there in 79AD.
    9 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2015
    Nothing like some history
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2021
    Enlightening in the chosen English prose. Intriguing in the theme of characters and fates. Great Book. Good adventure! Must read.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2011
    This book is painful to read....and even more painful to listen to (Audible). This book is so far off culturally it really is funny. The evil dark Egyptian...my god, if this weren't assigned to read I would never have read it. For those of you that love Victorian books, I'm so sorry to diss this, but I'd rather get beat to death with banana peels than read this book again.
    4 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on April 4, 2019
    makes the era come alive- especially of one has been to pompeii
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2020
    Most likely few people know the name of Edward Bulwer-Lytton. He authored the famous opening line “It was a dark and stormy night.” Which inspired cartoon dog Snoopy to be an author and an annual contest named for the author (human not canine). Bulwer-Litton was also the author of the famous quote: “The pen is mightier than the sword.” But likely few track attributions too closely. As for his book The Last Days of Pompeii (Kindle Edition) my speculation is that many know the title, have seen one or another of the movies and at most figure they may get around to the book someday. It is a fair read, hardly great literature. Not so much purple pose as over written. Calling it family friendly is oddly not that simple. There is no bad language and no sex and minimal violence. There is more than a hint of sex as entertainment, for hire and the beginnings of sexual predation. The Gladiator fight has a kind of staid stylized violence less bloody than would make a modern audience squirm. So even as this is a book as they used to write ‘em, it is not free of “a glimpse of stocking” or whatever the ancient Roman equivalent.

    Speaking of Roman equivalent, The Last Days of Pompeii was inspired by a walking tour EB-L had taken of the recently rediscovered ruins of Pompeii. A rude person might suggest that he had lifted much from his guide book and pasted it directly into his novel. Depending on you pleasure in the latest in 19th century archeology along with your light reads, these can get to be a bit of a drag. If all he is doing is showing off what he learned while on vacation it would be that much more irritating, but much of it is used to infuse romantic images onto the prosaic facts of the remains of an ancient party town.

    Last Days is a melodrama, toga costumed version of the “Perils of Pauline” variety. It is more. It is an ensemble drama more like the cast of dozens who are doomed books much later to be made famous. Titanic, Poseidon Adventure, On the Beach and of course the parody, Airplane! come to mind. None of these rates as great literature. Last Days, like the later books can be read on the beach or during the office lunch break without hiding the cover.

    We already know that the city is doomed. The title alone is a clue. The problem for the author is to engage us with the characters and their respective plights and plot turns. Overall Bulwer-Lytton achieves this. However, getting to the pyroclastic climax takes a lot of getting there. Allowing that he was writing when a more leisurely pacing of plots was expected, The Last Days of Pompeii has a few too many sub plots and narrative diversions. I suspect that having read The Last Days of Pompeii, you may not feel driven to read his entire shelf, but not so turned off as to avoid other titles.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2003
    I stumbled across this book when I was 14 years old and from that time I've re-read The Last Days Of Pompeii every year or so. And every time my appreciation for the simple beauty and grace of Bulwer-Lytton's story grows. From the frenzied descriptions of supernatural phenomena to the one-dimentional emotions that grip the characters it is possible to simply let your mind flow past the minor character and plot development problems, and instead let the sweet music of his purple prose capture your imagination. I find that conjuring up the images that his writing envokes is far easier than with most other historical writers that I have come across. Now, the minor flaws that I felt dampend the glory of this novel a bit are the shallowness of the characters. While it is lovely that Glaucus is a rake with a heart of gold, and that Ione is the only perfect human ever to exsist; the fact that most people would find it difficult to relate to the main characters is a bit tragic. Actually I found that the most believable character in the novel was that of the gladiator Lydon, who feels a guilty responsibility to his father and who is willing to sacrifice anything to release him from the life of drudgery and sin that are before him. Lydon feels all of the baser emotions that Glaucus and Ione are deprived of-anger, envy, disbelief, and the desire for revenge. But while he does feel these base emotions he is not a low individual, simply human with all of the flaws that youth will bring in abundance. Still, I greatly enjoyed the feeling of reading what is akin to a complex, tragic 400 plus page epic poem. I hope that anyone who takes up the challenge of reading this novel will take my advice to read it every few years-trust me, as you experience more of life your perception of the novel will change. Happy reading!
    8 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2018
    Ordered for a friend; not described correctly since it was the children's edition. Friend donating it to local library.
    3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English
  • orcagna
    1.0 out of 5 stars Garbled English
    Reviewed in Germany on November 23, 2020
    I don't know which translation bot did its work here, but the language is so garbled, it's barely understandable. I deleted it after the first capital and downloaded something in real English - which made GIANT difference!
  • Amazon Customer
    4.0 out of 5 stars Quality good
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 25, 2020
    Quality good and arrived on time the book is very good in the way it is trying to tell buller lytons story for teenagers
  • Lidia García
    5.0 out of 5 stars Bueno.
    Reviewed in Spain on May 16, 2014
    Es bueno. Denso, para los que disfrutan con ese tipo de lectura. Veraz. La letra un poco pequeña. Pero se deja leer.
  • Sashenka
    5.0 out of 5 stars Appassionante!
    Reviewed in Italy on July 12, 2013
    L'opera più importante di Bulwer-Lytton.
    Pubblicata nel 1834, B. Lytton rimase affascinato dai resti riemersi nel corso del '700 della città di Pompei.
    Il plot è senza troppe sbavature descrittive, molto intenso e avvincente e si dipana nella Pompei - piccola Roma- del 79 d.C.. Le descrizioni rendono al meglio il costume dell'epoca, il clima, le strade, le botteghe, le terme, il foro, l'anfiteatro, il tempio di Iside e la gente che lì viveva (egiziani, greci, romani, pompeiani, napoletani, tessali, ecc).
    Sulle vicende umane domina minaccioso il Vesuvio, segno di una natura distruttiva e imprevedibile. L'edizione è in lingua inglese - non moderna-; non ha introduzioni o prefazioni dell'autore; sono presenti alcune note a pié pagina (traduzione di espressioni in latino); questa edizione del 2006 pubblica la copia di una ristampa del 1887. Il formato del libro è leggermente più grande (23,5 x 19 cm).
    Attraverso questo libro si può capire l'importanza di preservare la nostra storia, invece di lasciarla deperire nell'abbandono!
  • nemo
    1.0 out of 5 stars One Star
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 15, 2016
    Failed to download

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