William Gell and Pompeiana

This article offers an analysis of the preparation, publication and reception of the two separate versions of Pompeiana , texts which exercised a formative influence over Victorian understanding of not just Roman Pompeii, but of domestic Roman life more broadly throughout the nineteenth century , and which highlight a transition from eighteenth - century antiquarianism to a more ‘archaeological’ approach to the past in the nineteenth c entury . Using unpublished correspondence that has been overlooked by other scholarship on Gell, i t argues that the form and content of the volumes responded to both contemporary fascination with the history of domestic life and the need for an affordable volume on Pompeii. But the volumes also reflected many of Gell’s more personal interests, developed in a career of travelling in Greece, Asia Minor and Spain, and were a product of his circumstances: they were conceived in order that Gell (a nd his co - adjutor Gandy in the first edition ) might earn much - needed additional income and were a means through which Gell could consolidate his social position in Naples by establishing his authoritative expertise on Pompeii.