The Last Days of Pompeii: an Historical Novel

In 79 A. D., the small city of Pompeii, located south of Mount Vesuvius and the modern city of Naples, was a beautiful resort town located near the Mediterranean Sea. It was here that nineteenth-century British novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton set his bestselling novel, which has remained in print ever since. In Pompeii Glaucus the Athenian meets Ione, and quickly falls in love with her?and she with him. But the Egyptian magus, Arbaces, last descendant of the ancient royal family of that now-Roman province, wants the pretty young girl for himself, and will do anything to attain his goal, including accusing the handsome Greek of a murder that the magician has himself committed. As the great mountain begins to belch its displeasure over the sybarite Roman existence, Glaucus is condemned to death in the gladiator?s ring. Can any of the Pompeiians survive the rain of gas and ash? S. Fowler Wright has adapted one of Bulwer-Lytton?s best historical novels, cutting some of the extraneous descriptive scenes, and bringing to life the men and women vying for existence amidst the unexpected destruction of their ancient city.