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Walter Scott seems to have been particularly interested in the outlaw as a figure who might have led a happy life but is turned aside into a life of crime. It is likely that he was working on Bizarro when in residence at Rome, since there is an account from two sources of how he showed the incomplete story to a German visitor. Sir William Gell presents a consistent view of Scott as having little real interest in Italy and its Classical history. However, had he been able to read Bizarro, he would have found that the reality was rather different. The scenario constructed by Gell, in which Scott was largely impervious to what was going on, was distinctly misleading. Many of Scott's changes simply correct mistakes of which he became aware either as he wrote or later. Bizarro emerges as a worthy conclusion to Scott's long series of prose narratives.

The initial hope that the Rosetta Stone would quickly lead to decipherment of the hieroglyphs and translation of the ancient Egyptian language were disappointed. Several scholars, including Silvestre de Sacy, made determined efforts, but with marginal results at best. The first significant steps were taken by the Scottish polymath Thomas Young, and the breakthrough was achieved by Jean François Champollion in 1822, although controversy lingers about the respective values of their accomplishments. With patronage from the influential Duke of Blacas, Champollion extended his initial work through study in European museums and moved beyond cracking the hieroglyphic script to some understanding of the ancient Egyptian language. Blacas also secured a post in the Louvre for Champollion who began building that museum's Egyptian collection. Well-connected scholars like Sir William Gell ensured interchange of information.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton' The Last Days of Pompeii (1834, LDP) was one of the most popular English historical novels of the nineteenth century. It tells the story of the virtuous Greeks Glaucus and Ione, their escape from Pompeii amid the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE, and their eventual conversion to Christianity, against a background of Roman decadence and corrupt Eastern religion. This chapter seeks to relate LDP's emphasis on the exposition and reconstruction of ancient city life in Pompeii to its author's interaction with the excavations and with their publication in the work of Sir William Gell and to the contemporary literary genre of novelized handbooks on Greek and Roman private life. It suggests that the extant Latin novels of Petronius and Apuleius are implicitly claimed by Bulwer-Lytton as prestigious literary ancestors of LDP's own form.