Classical topographer Sir William Gell (1777 1836) first came to public attention with his Topography of Troy (1804). Based on his travels around Bunarbashi, near to where Schliemann would subsequently excavate, the work (also reissued in this series) became a standard treatise. Byron even wrote: 'Of Dardan tours let dilettanti tell, / I leave topography to classic Gell.' A noted conversationalist and intellectual intermediary, Gell became a Fellow of the Royal Society and, indeed, a Member of the Society of Dilettanti. He also served, in 1803, on a diplomatic mission to the Ionian Islands;...