George Dennis

HM Vice-Consul George Dennis
Born	1814
Died	1898
Residence	Bengazi; Smyrna
Occupation	administrative
Society Membership membership ESL Corresponding member left not on printed lists elected_ESL 1869.04 clubs Athenaeum Club

Notes

Notes From Elsewhere

George Dennis (21 July 1814 in Ash Grove, Hackney, Middlesex – 15 November 1898 in South Kensington, London) was a British explorer of Etruria; his written account and drawings of the ancient places and monuments of the Etruscan civilization combined with his summary of the ancient sources is among the first of the modern era and remains an indispensable reference in Etruscan studies.

Member of the Athenaeum Club from 1890

A traveller and authority on the Etruscans, the self-taught son of an excise officer. He was the author of A Summer in Andalucia (Bentley: London, 1839) and a notable account of The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria (Murray: London, 1848). He was the Consul at Crete, Sicily, and Smyrna. Burton met him in the mid-1870s when he was writing Ultima Thule and researching Etruscan Bologna, and referred to him optimistically—“the curious reader will consult my friend and colleague Mr. Dennis”—though Dennis did not take to him at all, writing snottily to his publisher John Murray “I don't feel at all honoured by being booked as his ‘friend’. I only saw him once for 5 minutes when he called on me in Palermo while Lady Denman (not Isabella) was waiting in the carriage, and would not come in. He came to my backdoor, looked at my Arab horses, and was off. There is a friendship! But from what I have heard of his antecedents, he must be glad to claim any respectable individual, even tho' as insignificant as myself, as his ‘friend’.”[

Publications

External Publications

Dennis, George (1839). A Summer in Andalucia. London: R. Bentley. Two volumes. A rare book.
Dennis, George (1883). The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, Third Edition. London: John Murray. Two volumes. Downloadable from Google Books at [1].