A Writer's Things: Edward Bulwer Lytton and the Archaeological Gaze; or, What's in a Skull?

Abstract

There are on display at Knebworth House two skulls excavated from Pompeii that are labeled with names of characters from Edward Bulwer Lytton's novel The Last Days of Pompeii. This article shows how the exhibition of these objects goes to the heart of changing Victorian discourses about the display of objects, especially skulls, the self-representation of authors, and the history of archaeology. It locates Bulwer's display between Scott at the beginning of the century and Freud at the end to show how notions of science, nationalism, and history provide the frames necessary to understanding this changing style of exhibition in the writer's workplace.