Last Days of Pompeii

This is a cleaver and interesting mystical story of Pompeii - an interesting and well done piece of romantic fiction.

Though the description is overdone and the plot rather creaking, I was caught up by both the description and the story. Glaucus, an Athenian in Pompeii, loves Ione, as does Arbaces, an Egyptian of evil. Nydia, a blind slave, also loves Glaucus. Arbaces kills Apaecides, brother of Ione, who has become a Christian, and then blames the killing on Glaucus, who has become temporarily crazed by a supposed love potion given him by Nydia--after Nydia took it from Julia, who had gotten it from a witch at Arbaces' urging. To illustarte the fulsome style: "The eyes of the crowd folowed the gesture of the Egyptian, and beheld, with ineffable dismay, a vast vapour shooting from the summit of Vesuvius, in the form of a gigantic pine-tree, the trunk, blackness,--the branches, fire!--a fire, that shifted and wavered in its hues with every moment, now fiercely luminous, now of a dull and dying red, that again blazed terrifically forth with intolerable glare!" You will not soon forget this awesome book.

This historically accurate novel is filled with exceptional characters and an intriguing plot. Set in the days before the famous eruption of Mount Vesuvious, the novel highlights several stories at once, dealing with romance, adventure, and treachery. Edward Bulwer-Lytton did an excellent job in making the story deep and colorful. It is perfect for students studying Roman culture, as well as anyone looking for a good novel. This book is definitely a classic worth reading!

A descriptive novel concerning the buriel of Pompeii,a Roman city that was oblitorated by the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D 79.

The novel's situation is always in the back of your mind, the reader always has the tingling nervousness that the volcano is going to explode any time. With this juxtaposition of a love story which is epic and purely inspiring in its purest form the novel is a great read and drags you through the Pompeiin's world. Bulwer excited me most in his description of Glaucus' and Julia's love for each other, it is the most purest and devotional of loves, they are epic figures in a landscape of treachery and shallowness and the reader strives for them to succeed. If you are interested in the Roman culture and its history, plus if you're a romantic at heart who wishes to be in the sun of Italia then read this book. Bulwer's poems sweeten the denseness of his archaic syntax and the Blind girl's song's strike a chord of lovely imagery, I'm still recovering form the read's epicness!