Article ID: CBB001320017

A Writer's Things: Edward Bulwer Lytton and the Archaeological Gaze; or, What's in a Skull? (2012)

unapi

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.

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001320017/

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Authors & Contributors
McAleer, John
Appelbaum, Nancy P.
Bennett, Tony
Bleichmar, Daniela
Brotton, Jerry
Challis, Debbie
Journals
Journal of the History of Collections
British Journal for the History of Science
Eighteenth-Century Studies
Endeavour: Review of the Progress of Science
Hispanic American Historical Review
History and Anthropology
Publishers
Bodleian Library
Manchester University Press
Oxford University Press
Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group
The MIT Press
Concepts
Science and culture
Archaeology
Visual representation; visual communication
Collections
Nationalism
Museums
People
Baines, Thomas
Gall, Franz Joseph
Kirkaldy, David
Labillardière, François Joseph Houtou de
Petrie, William Matthew Flinders
Spurzheim, Johann Kaspar
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
18th century
Enlightenment
Places
Great Britain
France
China
Germany
Africa
Australia
Institutions
Bodleian Library
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