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 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; his subsequent journey, with the archaeologist Edward Dodwell, through the Peloponnese - then known as the Morea - became the subject of several later books, including Narrative of a Journey in the Morea (1823; also reissued in this series) and this 1817 publication. Comprising a survey of routes through the area, and their natural and archaeological landmarks, it sheds light on both contemporary Greece and the practicalities of early topographical study.
