 "The Last Days of Pompeii" was inspired by Karl Briullov's painting "The Last Day of Pompeii", which Bulwer-Lytton saw in Milan.His "New Timon" lampooned Tennyson, who responded in kind.Bulwer-Lytton also wrote the horror story "The Haunted and the Haunters" or "The House and the Brain" (1859).