Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Encyclopedia
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton PC (25 May 1803 – 18 January 1873), was an English politician
, poet, playwright, and novelist. He was immensely popular with the reading public and wrote a stream of bestselling dime-novels which earned him a considerable fortune. He coined the clichés "the great unwashed", "pursuit of the almighty dollar
", "the pen is mightier than the sword
", as well as the famous opening line "It was a dark and stormy night
".
and Wood Dalling
, Norfolk
and Elizabeth Barbara Lytton
, daughter of Richard Warburton Lytton of Knebworth
, Hertfordshire
. He had two elder brothers, William Earle Lytton Bulwer (1799–1877) and Henry
(1801–1872), later Lord Dalling and Bulwer.
When Edward was four his father died and his mother moved to London. He was a delicate, neurotic child and was discontented at a number of boarding schools. But he was precocious and Mr Wallington at Baling encouraged him to publish, at the age of fifteen, an immature work, Ishmael and Other Poems.
In 1822 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge
, but shortly afterwards moved to Trinity Hall
. In 1825 he won the Chancellor's Gold Medal
for English verse. In the following year he took his B.A. degree and printed, for private circulation, a small volume of poems, Weeds and Wild Flowers.
He purchased a commission in the army, but sold it without serving.
In August 1827, against his mother's wishes, he married Rosina Doyle Wheeler
(1802–1882), a famous Irish beauty. When they married his mother withdrew his allowance and he was forced to work for a living. They had two children, Lady Emily Elizabeth Bulwer-Lytton (1828–1848), and (Edward) Robert Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton
(1831–1891) who became Viceroy of British India
(1876–1880).
His writing and political work strained their marriage while his unfaithfulness embittered Rosina; in 1833 they separated acrimoniously and in 1836 the separation became legal. Three years later, Rosina published Cheveley, or the Man of Honour (1839), a near-libellous fiction bitterly satirising her husband's hypocrisy.
In June 1858, when her husband was standing as parliamentary candidate for Hertfordshire, she indignantly denounced him at the hustings. He retaliated by threatening her publishers, withholding her allowance, and denying access to the children. Finally he had her committed to a mental asylum. But, after a public outcry she was released a few weeks later. This incident was chronicled in her memoir, A Blighted Life
(1880). For years she continued her attacks upon her husband’s character.
The death of Bulwer-Lytton's mother in 1843, greatly saddened him. His own "exhauston of toil and study had been completed by great anxiety and grief", and by "about the January of 1844, I was thoroughly shattered". In his mother's room, Bulwer-Lytton "had inscribed above the mantelpiece a request that future generations preserve the room as his beloved mother had used it"; it remains essentially unchanged to this day.
On 20 February 1844, in accordance with his mother's will, he changed his surname from 'Bulwer' to 'Bulwer-Lytton' and assumed the arms of Lytton by royal licence. His widowed mother had done the same in 1811. But, his brothers remained plain 'Bulwer'.
By chance he encountered a copy of "Captain Claridge's
work on the 'Water Cure,' as practised by Priessnitz, at Graefenberg", and "making allowances for certain exaggerations therein", pondered the option of travelling to Graefenberg, but preferred to find something closer to home, with access to his own doctors in case of failure: "I who scarcely lived through a day without leech or potion!".
After reading a pamphlet by Doctor James Wilson, who operated a hydropathic establishment with James Manby Gully
at Malvern
, he stayed there for "some nine or ten weeks", after which he "continued the system some seven weeks longer under Doctor Weiss, at Petersham
", then again at "Doctor Schmidt's magnificent hydropathic establishment at Boppart", after developing a cold and fever upon his return home.
In 1866 Bulwer-Lytton was raised to the peerage as Baron Lytton.
The English Rosicrucian
society, founded in 1867 by Robert Wentworth Little
, claimed Bulwer-Lytton as their 'Grand Patron', but he wrote to the society complaining that he was 'extremely surprised' by their use of the title, as he had 'never sanctioned such'. Nevertheless, a number of esoteric groups have continued to claim Bulwer-Lytton as their own, chiefly because some of his writings—such as the 1842 book Zanoni
—have included Rosicrucian and other esoteric notions. According to the Fulham Football Club, he once resided in the original Craven Cottage
, today the site of their stadium.
Bulwer-Lytton had long suffered with a disease of the ear and for the last two or three years of his life he lived in Torquay nursing his health. Following an operation to cure deafness, an abscess formed in his ear and burst; he endured intense pain for a week and died at 2am on 18 January 1873 just short of his 70th birthday. The cause of death was not clear but it was thought that the infection had affected his brain and caused a fit. Rosina outlived him by nine years. Against his wishes, Bulwer-Lytton was honoured with a burial in Westminster Abbey
.
His unfinished history Athens: Its Rise and Fall was published posthumously.
. In 1831 he was elected member
for St Ives
in Cornwall, after which he was returned for Lincoln
in 1832, and sat in Parliament
for that city for nine years. He spoke in favour of the Reform Bill
, and took the leading part in securing the reduction, after vainly essaying the repeal, of the newspaper stamp duties. His influence was perhaps most keenly felt when, on the Whigs’
dismissal from office in 1834, he issued a pamphlet entitled A Letter to a Late Cabinet Minister on the Crisis. Lord Melbourne
, then Prime Minister
, offered him a lordship of the admiralty
, which he declined as likely to interfere with his activity as an author.
In 1841, he left Parliament and didn't return to politics until 1852; this time, having differed from the policy of Lord John Russell
over the Corn Laws
, he stood for Hertfordshire
as a Conservative
. Lord Lytton held that seat until 1866, when he was raised to the peerage
as Baron Lytton of Knebworth in the County of Hertford. In 1858 he entered Lord Derby
's government
as Secretary of State for the Colonies
, thus serving alongside his old friend Disraeli. In the House of Lords
he was comparatively inactive. He took a proprietary interest in the development of the Crown Colony
of British Columbia
and wrote with great passion to the Royal Engineers
upon assigning them their duties there. The former HBC
Fort Dallas at Camchin, the confluence of the Thompson
and Fraser River
s, was renamed in his honour by Governor Sir James Douglas
in 1858 as Lytton, British Columbia
.
, mystery
, romance
, the occult
, and science fiction
. He financed his extravagant life with a varied and prolific literary output, sometimes publishing anonymously.
In 1828 Pelham brought him public acclaim and established his reputation as a wit and dandy. Its intricate plot and humorous, intimate portrayal of pre-Victorian dandyism kept gossips busy trying to associate public figures with characters in the book. Pelham resembled Benjamin Disraeli's recent first novel Vivian Grey
(1827).
Bulwer-Lytton admired Benjamin’s father, Isaac D'Israeli
, himself a noted author. They began corresponding in the late 1820s and met for the first time in March 1830, when Isaac D'Israeli dined at Bulwer-Lytton’s house (also present that evening were Charles Pelham Villiers
and Alexander Cockburn
. The young Villiers was to have a long parliamentary career, while Cockburn became Lord Chief Justice of England in 1859).
Bulwer-Lytton reached the height of his popularity with the publication of Godolphin (1833). This was followed by The Pilgrims of the Rhine (1834), The Last Days of Pompeii
(1834), Rienzi, Last of the Roman Tribunes (1835), and Harold, the Last of the Saxons (1848). The Last Days of Pompeii
was inspired by Karl Briullov's
painting, The Last Day of Pompeii
, which Bulwer-Lytton saw in Milan
.
He also wrote the horror story The Haunted and the Haunters or The House and the Brain (1859).
Bulwer-Lyton penned many other works, including The Coming Race or Vril: The Power of the Coming Race
(1871), which drew heavily on his interest in the occult and contributed to the birth of the science fiction genre. Its story of a subterranean race waiting to reclaim the surface of the Earth is an early science fiction theme. The book popularised the Hollow Earth theory and may have inspired Nazi mysticism
. His term "vril" lent its name to Bovril
meat extract.
His play, Money
(1840), was first produced at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London, on December 8, 1840. The first American production was at the Old Park Theater in New York on February 1, 1841. Subsequent productions include the Prince of Wales's Theatre
's in 1872 and it was also the inaugural play at the new California Theatre
in San Francisco in 1869.
", is from his play Richelieu where it appears in the line
In addition, he gave the world the memorable phrase "pursuit of the almighty dollar
" from his novel The Coming Race.
He is also credited with "the great unwashed". He used this rather disparaging term in his 1830 novel Paul Clifford:
The Last Days of Pompeii
has been cited as the first source, but inspection of the original text shows this to be wrong. However, the term "the Unwashed" with the same meaning, appears in The Parisians: "He says that Paris has grown so dirty since the 4 September, that it is only fit for the feet of the Unwashed." The Parisians, though, was not published until 1872, while William Makepeace Thackeray
's novel Pendennis (1850) uses the phrase ironically, implying it was already established. The Oxford English Dictionary
refers to "Messrs. the Great Unwashed" in Lytton's Paul Clifford (1830), as the earliest instance.
Bulwer-Lytton is also credited with the appellation for the Germans "Das Volk der Dichter und Denker", the people of poets and thinkers.
, in which contestants think-up terrible openings for imaginary novels, inspired by the first seven words of his novel Paul Clifford
:
comic strip, in which Snoopy's
sessions on the typewriter usually began with It was a dark and stormy night
. The same words also form the first sentence of Madeleine L'Engle’s Newbery Medal
-winning novel A Wrinkle in Time
. Similar wording appears in Edgar Allan Poe's 1831 short story, The Bargain Lost, although not at the very beginning. It reads:
, it appears to be Poe's deliberate mocking of Lord Lytton's opening line.
s, one of which, Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen
by Richard Wagner
, eventually became more famous than the novel. Leonora
by William Henry Fry
, the first opera composed in the United States of America, is based on Bulwer-Lytton's play The Lady of Lyons
.
at the time of his death in 1873.
), German, Russian, Norwegian, Swedish, French, Finnish, and Spanish. In 1879, his Ernest Maltravers was the first complete novel from the West to be translated into Japanese.
Other links
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Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
, poet, playwright, and novelist. He was immensely popular with the reading public and wrote a stream of bestselling dime-novels which earned him a considerable fortune. He coined the clichés "the great unwashed", "pursuit of the almighty dollar
Almighty dollar
Almighty dollar is an idiom often used to satirize an obsession for material wealth .The beginning of the realisation that wealth can engender quasi-religious respect has been attributed to British writer Ben Johnson, who wrote in 1616:The "dollar" version of the phrase is commonly attributed to...
", "the pen is mightier than the sword
The pen is mightier than the sword
"The pen is mightier than the sword" is a metonymic adage coined by English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839 for his play Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy. The play was about Cardinal Richelieu, though in the author's words "license with dates and details.....
", as well as the famous opening line "It was a dark and stormy night
It was a dark and stormy night
"It was a dark and stormy night" is an infamous phrase written by Victorian novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton at the beginning of his 1830 novel Paul Clifford. The annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest uses the phrase as a signifier of purple prose...
".
Life
Bulwer-Lytton was born on 25 May 1803 to General William Earle Bulwer of Heydon HallHeydon, Norfolk
Heydon, Norfolk, is an English village in the county of Norfolk and district of Broadland.Heydon is about five miles north of Reepham, and has no through road, making it isolated except from the south...
and Wood Dalling
Wood Dalling
Wood Dalling is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It is situated some east of Fakenham, south-west of Cromer, and north-west of Norwich....
, Norfolk
Norfolk
Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...
and Elizabeth Barbara Lytton
Elizabeth Barbara Lytton
Elizabeth Barbara Bulwer-Lytton was a member of the Lytton family of Knebworth House in Hertfordshire, England. During her marriage to General William Earle Bulwer , the couple lived at Heydon Hall in Norfolk...
, daughter of Richard Warburton Lytton of Knebworth
Knebworth
Knebworth is a village and civil parish in the north of Hertfordshire, England immediately south of Stevenage. The civil parish covers an area between the villages of Datchworth, Woolmer Green, Codicote, Kimpton, Whitwell, St Paul's Walden and Langley, and encompasses the village of Knebworth, the...
, Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
. He had two elder brothers, William Earle Lytton Bulwer (1799–1877) and Henry
Henry Bulwer, 1st Baron Dalling and Bulwer
Henry Lytton Earle Bulwer, 1st Baron Dalling and Bulwer GCB, PC was a British Liberal politician, diplomat and writer.-Background and education:...
(1801–1872), later Lord Dalling and Bulwer.
When Edward was four his father died and his mother moved to London. He was a delicate, neurotic child and was discontented at a number of boarding schools. But he was precocious and Mr Wallington at Baling encouraged him to publish, at the age of fifteen, an immature work, Ishmael and Other Poems.
In 1822 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
, but shortly afterwards moved to Trinity Hall
Trinity Hall, Cambridge
Trinity Hall is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. It is the fifth-oldest college of the university, having been founded in 1350 by William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich.- Foundation :...
. In 1825 he won the Chancellor's Gold Medal
Chancellor's Gold Medal
The Chancellor's Gold Medal is a prestigious annual award at Cambridge University for poetry, paralleling Oxford University's Newdigate prize. It was first presented by Prince William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh during his time as Chancellor of the University of Cambridge...
for English verse. In the following year he took his B.A. degree and printed, for private circulation, a small volume of poems, Weeds and Wild Flowers.
He purchased a commission in the army, but sold it without serving.
In August 1827, against his mother's wishes, he married Rosina Doyle Wheeler
Rosina Bulwer Lytton
Rosina Bulwer Lytton wrote and published fourteen novels, a volume of essays and a volume of letters. Her husband was Edward Bulwer-Lytton, a novelist and politician...
(1802–1882), a famous Irish beauty. When they married his mother withdrew his allowance and he was forced to work for a living. They had two children, Lady Emily Elizabeth Bulwer-Lytton (1828–1848), and (Edward) Robert Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton
Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton
Edward Robert Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, GCB, GCSI, GCIE, PC was an English statesman and poet...
(1831–1891) who became Viceroy of British India
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
(1876–1880).
His writing and political work strained their marriage while his unfaithfulness embittered Rosina; in 1833 they separated acrimoniously and in 1836 the separation became legal. Three years later, Rosina published Cheveley, or the Man of Honour (1839), a near-libellous fiction bitterly satirising her husband's hypocrisy.
In June 1858, when her husband was standing as parliamentary candidate for Hertfordshire, she indignantly denounced him at the hustings. He retaliated by threatening her publishers, withholding her allowance, and denying access to the children. Finally he had her committed to a mental asylum. But, after a public outcry she was released a few weeks later. This incident was chronicled in her memoir, A Blighted Life
A Blighted Life
A Blighted Life is an 1880 book by Rosina Bulwer Lytton chronicling the events surrounding her incarceration in a Victorian madhouse by her husband Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton and her subsequent release a few weeks later.-Further reading:...
(1880). For years she continued her attacks upon her husband’s character.
The death of Bulwer-Lytton's mother in 1843, greatly saddened him. His own "exhauston of toil and study had been completed by great anxiety and grief", and by "about the January of 1844, I was thoroughly shattered". In his mother's room, Bulwer-Lytton "had inscribed above the mantelpiece a request that future generations preserve the room as his beloved mother had used it"; it remains essentially unchanged to this day.
On 20 February 1844, in accordance with his mother's will, he changed his surname from 'Bulwer' to 'Bulwer-Lytton' and assumed the arms of Lytton by royal licence. His widowed mother had done the same in 1811. But, his brothers remained plain 'Bulwer'.
By chance he encountered a copy of "Captain Claridge's
Captain R. T. Claridge
Captain Richard Tappin Claridge, F.S.A. , was a prominent asphalt contractor and captain in the Middlesex Militia, who became best known for his prominent promotion of hydropathy, now known as hydrotherapy, in the 1840s. It was also known as the Cold Water system or Cold Water cure...
work on the 'Water Cure,' as practised by Priessnitz, at Graefenberg", and "making allowances for certain exaggerations therein", pondered the option of travelling to Graefenberg, but preferred to find something closer to home, with access to his own doctors in case of failure: "I who scarcely lived through a day without leech or potion!".
After reading a pamphlet by Doctor James Wilson, who operated a hydropathic establishment with James Manby Gully
James Manby Gully
Dr James Manby Gully , was a Victorian medical doctor, well known for practising hydrotherapy, or the "water cure". Along with his partner James Wilson, he founded a very successful "hydropathy" clinic in Malvern, Worcestershire, which had many notable Victorians, including such figures as Charles...
at Malvern
Malvern, Worcestershire
Malvern is a town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England, governed by Malvern Town Council. As of the 2001 census it has a population of 28,749, and includes the historical settlement and commercial centre of Great Malvern on the steep eastern flank of the Malvern Hills, and the former...
, he stayed there for "some nine or ten weeks", after which he "continued the system some seven weeks longer under Doctor Weiss, at Petersham
Petersham
Petersham is a place in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames on the east of the bend in the River Thames south of Richmond, which it shares with neighbouring Ham. It provides the foreground of the scenic view from Richmond Hill across Petersham Meadows, with Ham House further along the River...
", then again at "Doctor Schmidt's magnificent hydropathic establishment at Boppart", after developing a cold and fever upon his return home.
In 1866 Bulwer-Lytton was raised to the peerage as Baron Lytton.
The English Rosicrucian
Rosicrucian
Rosicrucianism is a philosophical secret society, said to have been founded in late medieval Germany by Christian Rosenkreuz. It holds a doctrine or theology "built on esoteric truths of the ancient past", which, "concealed from the average man, provide insight into nature, the physical universe...
society, founded in 1867 by Robert Wentworth Little
Robert Wentworth Little
Robert Wentworth Little was a clerk and cashier of the secretary’s office at the United Grand Lodge of England and later secretary of the Royal Institution for Girls. He is credited with the structural design of the S.R.I.A. with the rituals acquired from the store room of Freemasons Hall...
, claimed Bulwer-Lytton as their 'Grand Patron', but he wrote to the society complaining that he was 'extremely surprised' by their use of the title, as he had 'never sanctioned such'. Nevertheless, a number of esoteric groups have continued to claim Bulwer-Lytton as their own, chiefly because some of his writings—such as the 1842 book Zanoni
Zanoni
Zanoni is an 1842 novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, a story of love and occult aspiration. By way of introduction, the author confesses: "...It so chanced that some years ago, in my younger days, whether of authorship or life, I felt the desire to make myself acquainted with the true origins and...
—have included Rosicrucian and other esoteric notions. According to the Fulham Football Club, he once resided in the original Craven Cottage
Craven Cottage
Craven Cottage is the name of a football stadium in the Hammersmith and Fulham area that has been the home ground of the association football team Fulham F.C. since 1896....
, today the site of their stadium.
Bulwer-Lytton had long suffered with a disease of the ear and for the last two or three years of his life he lived in Torquay nursing his health. Following an operation to cure deafness, an abscess formed in his ear and burst; he endured intense pain for a week and died at 2am on 18 January 1873 just short of his 70th birthday. The cause of death was not clear but it was thought that the infection had affected his brain and caused a fit. Rosina outlived him by nine years. Against his wishes, Bulwer-Lytton was honoured with a burial in Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
.
His unfinished history Athens: Its Rise and Fall was published posthumously.
Career
Bulwer-Lytton began his career as a follower of Jeremy BenthamJeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism...
. In 1831 he was elected member
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
for St Ives
St Ives (UK Parliament constituency)
St. Ives is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election.-History:...
in Cornwall, after which he was returned for Lincoln
Lincoln (UK Parliament constituency)
Lincoln is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election....
in 1832, and sat in Parliament
Parliament of England
The Parliament of England was the legislature of the Kingdom of England. In 1066, William of Normandy introduced a feudal system, by which he sought the advice of a council of tenants-in-chief and ecclesiastics before making laws...
for that city for nine years. He spoke in favour of the Reform Bill
Reform Act 1832
The Representation of the People Act 1832 was an Act of Parliament that introduced wide-ranging changes to the electoral system of England and Wales...
, and took the leading part in securing the reduction, after vainly essaying the repeal, of the newspaper stamp duties. His influence was perhaps most keenly felt when, on the Whigs’
British Whig Party
The Whigs were a party in the Parliament of England, Parliament of Great Britain, and Parliament of the United Kingdom, who contested power with the rival Tories from the 1680s to the 1850s. The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule...
dismissal from office in 1834, he issued a pamphlet entitled A Letter to a Late Cabinet Minister on the Crisis. Lord Melbourne
William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne
William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, PC, FRS was a British Whig statesman who served as Home Secretary and Prime Minister . He is best known for his intense and successful mentoring of Queen Victoria, at ages 18-21, in the ways of politics...
, then Prime Minister
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
, offered him a lordship of the admiralty
Admiralty
The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...
, which he declined as likely to interfere with his activity as an author.
In 1841, he left Parliament and didn't return to politics until 1852; this time, having differed from the policy of Lord John Russell
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, KG, GCMG, PC , known as Lord John Russell before 1861, was an English Whig and Liberal politician who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century....
over the Corn Laws
Corn Laws
The Corn Laws were trade barriers designed to protect cereal producers in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland against competition from less expensive foreign imports between 1815 and 1846. The barriers were introduced by the Importation Act 1815 and repealed by the Importation Act 1846...
, he stood for Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire (UK Parliament constituency)
Hertfordshire was a county constituency covering the county of Hertfordshire in England. It returned two Knights of the Shire to the House of Commons of England until 1707, then to the House of Commons of Great Britain until 1800, and to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom...
as a Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
. Lord Lytton held that seat until 1866, when he was raised to the peerage
Peerage
The Peerage is a legal system of largely hereditary titles in the United Kingdom, which constitute the ranks of British nobility and is part of the British honours system...
as Baron Lytton of Knebworth in the County of Hertford. In 1858 he entered Lord Derby
Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby
Edward George Geoffrey Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, KG, PC was an English statesman, three times Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and to date the longest serving leader of the Conservative Party. He was known before 1834 as Edward Stanley, and from 1834 to 1851 as Lord Stanley...
's government
Second Derby Ministry
-The Ministry:-Reference:* British Historical Facts 1830-1900, by Chris Cook and Brendon Keith pp. 21-22 SBN 333 13220 3...
as Secretary of State for the Colonies
Secretary of State for the Colonies
The Secretary of State for the Colonies or Colonial Secretary was the British Cabinet minister in charge of managing the United Kingdom's various colonial dependencies....
, thus serving alongside his old friend Disraeli. In the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
he was comparatively inactive. He took a proprietary interest in the development of the Crown Colony
British overseas territories
The British Overseas Territories are fourteen territories of the United Kingdom which, although they do not form part of the United Kingdom itself, fall under its jurisdiction. They are remnants of the British Empire that have not acquired independence or have voted to remain British territories...
of British Columbia
Colony of British Columbia
The Colony of British Columbia was a crown colony in British North America from 1858 until 1866. At its creation, it physically constituted approximately half the present day Canadian province of British Columbia, since it did not include the Colony of Vancouver Island, the vast and still largely...
and wrote with great passion to the Royal Engineers
Royal Engineers
The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers , and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army....
upon assigning them their duties there. The former HBC
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...
Fort Dallas at Camchin, the confluence of the Thompson
Thompson River
The Thompson River is the largest tributary of the Fraser River, flowing through the south-central portion of British Columbia, Canada. The Thompson River has two main branches called the South Thompson and the North Thompson...
and Fraser River
Fraser River
The Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Mount Robson in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia at the city of Vancouver. It is the tenth longest river in Canada...
s, was renamed in his honour by Governor Sir James Douglas
James Douglas (Governor)
Sir James Douglas KCB was a company fur-trader and a British colonial governor on Vancouver Island in northwestern North America, particularly in what is now British Columbia. Douglas worked for the North West Company, and later for the Hudson's Bay Company becoming a high-ranking company officer...
in 1858 as Lytton, British Columbia
Lytton, British Columbia
Lytton in British Columbia, Canada, sits at the confluence of the Thompson River and Fraser River on the east side of the Fraser. The location has been inhabited by the Nlaka'pamux people for over 10,000 years, and is one of the earliest locations settled by non-natives in the Southern Interior of...
.
Literary works
Bulwer-Lytton's literary career began in 1820 - with the publication of a book of poems - and spanned much of the nineteenth century. He wrote in a variety of genres, including historical fictionHistorical fiction
Historical fiction tells a story that is set in the past. That setting is usually real and drawn from history, and often contains actual historical persons, but the principal characters tend to be fictional...
, mystery
Mystery fiction
Mystery fiction is a loosely-defined term.1.It is often used as a synonym for detective fiction or crime fiction— in other words a novel or short story in which a detective investigates and solves a crime mystery. Sometimes mystery books are nonfiction...
, romance
Romance (genre)
As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...
, the occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
, and science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
. He financed his extravagant life with a varied and prolific literary output, sometimes publishing anonymously.
Vivian Grey
Vivian Grey is Benjamin Disraeli's first novel, published by Henry Colburn in 1826. In 1827, a second volume was published. Originally published anonymously, ostensibly by a so-called "man of fashion," part 1 caused a considerable sensation in London society...
(1827).
Bulwer-Lytton admired Benjamin’s father, Isaac D'Israeli
Isaac D'Israeli
Isaac D'Israeli was a British writer, scholar and man of letters. He is best known for his essays, his associations with other men of letters, and for being the father of British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli....
, himself a noted author. They began corresponding in the late 1820s and met for the first time in March 1830, when Isaac D'Israeli dined at Bulwer-Lytton’s house (also present that evening were Charles Pelham Villiers
Charles Pelham Villiers
Charles Pelham Villiers was a British lawyer and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1835 to 1898, making him the longest-serving Member of Parliament .-Background and education:...
and Alexander Cockburn
Sir Alexander Cockburn, 12th Baronet
Sir Alexander James Edmund Cockburn, 12th Baronet Q.C. was a Scottish lawyer, politician and judge. A notorious womaniser and socialite, as Lord Chief Justice he heard some of the leading causes célèbres of the 19th century.-Life:Cockburn was born in Alţâna, in what is now Romania and was then...
. The young Villiers was to have a long parliamentary career, while Cockburn became Lord Chief Justice of England in 1859).
Bulwer-Lytton reached the height of his popularity with the publication of Godolphin (1833). This was followed by The Pilgrims of the Rhine (1834), The Last Days of Pompeii
The Last Days of Pompeii
The Last Days of Pompeii is a novel written by the baron Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1834. Once a very widely read book and now relatively neglected, it culminates in the cataclysmic destruction of the city of Pompeii by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.The novel uses its characters to contrast...
(1834), Rienzi, Last of the Roman Tribunes (1835), and Harold, the Last of the Saxons (1848). The Last Days of Pompeii
The Last Days of Pompeii
The Last Days of Pompeii is a novel written by the baron Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1834. Once a very widely read book and now relatively neglected, it culminates in the cataclysmic destruction of the city of Pompeii by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.The novel uses its characters to contrast...
was inspired by Karl Briullov's
Karl Briullov
Karl Pavlovich Bryullov , also transliterated Briullov or Briuloff and referred to by his friends as "The Great Karl", was a Russian painter...
painting, The Last Day of Pompeii
The Last Day of Pompeii
The Last Day of Pompeii is a large canvas painted by Russian artist Karl Briullov in 1830-33.The Russian painter visited the site of Pompeii in 1828 and made numerous sketches. Depicting the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, the completed canvas was exhibited in Rome to rapturous reviews of critics...
, which Bulwer-Lytton saw in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
.
He also wrote the horror story The Haunted and the Haunters or The House and the Brain (1859).
Bulwer-Lyton penned many other works, including The Coming Race or Vril: The Power of the Coming Race
Vril
Vril, the Power of the Coming Race is a 1871 science fiction novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, originally printed as The Coming Race. Many early readers believed that its account of a superior subterranean master race and the energy-form called "Vril" was accurate, to the extent that some theosophists...
(1871), which drew heavily on his interest in the occult and contributed to the birth of the science fiction genre. Its story of a subterranean race waiting to reclaim the surface of the Earth is an early science fiction theme. The book popularised the Hollow Earth theory and may have inspired Nazi mysticism
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
. His term "vril" lent its name to Bovril
Bovril
Bovril is the trademarked name of a thick, salty meat extract, developed in the 1870s by John Lawson Johnston and sold in a distinctive, bulbous jar. It is made in Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, owned and distributed by Unilever UK....
meat extract.
His play, Money
Money (play)
Money is a comic play by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. It premiered at the Theatre Royal Haymarket on 8 December 1840.-Production history:The play was revived at the Royal National Theatre in 1999, directed by John Caird and with a cast including Jasper Britton, Roger Allam, Simon Russell Beale, Sophie...
(1840), was first produced at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London, on December 8, 1840. The first American production was at the Old Park Theater in New York on February 1, 1841. Subsequent productions include the Prince of Wales's Theatre
Scala Theatre
The Scala Theatre was a theatre in London, sited on Charlotte Street, off Tottenham Court Road, in the London Borough of Camden. The first theatre on the site opened in 1772, and the theatre was demolished in 1969, after being destroyed by fire...
's in 1872 and it was also the inaugural play at the new California Theatre
California Theatre (San Francisco)
The California Theatre , was located at 414 Bush Street, San Francisco. It was built in 1869 by William Ralston, at that time the treasurer of the Bank of California. S. C. Bugbee & Son were the architects and the theatre cost $250, 000 to build.Anpther source puts the figure at $150,000...
in San Francisco in 1869.
Quotations
Bulwer-Lytton's most famous quotation, "the pen is mightier than the swordThe pen is mightier than the sword
"The pen is mightier than the sword" is a metonymic adage coined by English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839 for his play Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy. The play was about Cardinal Richelieu, though in the author's words "license with dates and details.....
", is from his play Richelieu where it appears in the line
beneath the rule of men entirely great, the pen is mightier than the swordThe pen is mightier than the sword"The pen is mightier than the sword" is a metonymic adage coined by English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839 for his play Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy. The play was about Cardinal Richelieu, though in the author's words "license with dates and details.....
In addition, he gave the world the memorable phrase "pursuit of the almighty dollar
Almighty dollar
Almighty dollar is an idiom often used to satirize an obsession for material wealth .The beginning of the realisation that wealth can engender quasi-religious respect has been attributed to British writer Ben Johnson, who wrote in 1616:The "dollar" version of the phrase is commonly attributed to...
" from his novel The Coming Race.
He is also credited with "the great unwashed". He used this rather disparaging term in his 1830 novel Paul Clifford:
He is certainly a man who bathes and ‘lives cleanly’, (two especial charges preferred against him by Messrs. the Great Unwashed).
The Last Days of Pompeii
The Last Days of Pompeii
The Last Days of Pompeii is a novel written by the baron Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1834. Once a very widely read book and now relatively neglected, it culminates in the cataclysmic destruction of the city of Pompeii by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.The novel uses its characters to contrast...
has been cited as the first source, but inspection of the original text shows this to be wrong. However, the term "the Unwashed" with the same meaning, appears in The Parisians: "He says that Paris has grown so dirty since the 4 September, that it is only fit for the feet of the Unwashed." The Parisians, though, was not published until 1872, while William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist of the 19th century. He was famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society.-Biography:...
's novel Pendennis (1850) uses the phrase ironically, implying it was already established. The Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
refers to "Messrs. the Great Unwashed" in Lytton's Paul Clifford (1830), as the earliest instance.
Bulwer-Lytton is also credited with the appellation for the Germans "Das Volk der Dichter und Denker", the people of poets and thinkers.
Contest
Bulwer-Lytton's name lives on in the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction ContestBulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest
The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is a tongue-in-cheek contest that takes place annually and is sponsored by the English Department of San Jose State University in San Jose, California. Entrants are invited "to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels" – that is,...
, in which contestants think-up terrible openings for imaginary novels, inspired by the first seven words of his novel Paul Clifford
Paul Clifford
Paul Clifford is a novel published in 1830 by English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton. It tells the life of Paul Clifford, a man who leads a dual life as both a criminal and an upscale gentleman...
:
It was a dark and stormy nightEntrants in the contest seek to capture the rapid changes in point of view, the florid language, and the atmosphere of the full sentence. The opening was popularized by the PeanutsIt was a dark and stormy night"It was a dark and stormy night" is an infamous phrase written by Victorian novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton at the beginning of his 1830 novel Paul Clifford. The annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest uses the phrase as a signifier of purple prose...
; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.
Peanuts
Peanuts is a syndicated daily and Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz, which ran from October 2, 1950, to February 13, 2000, continuing in reruns afterward...
comic strip, in which Snoopy's
Snoopy
Snoopy is an fictional character in the long-running comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz. He is Charlie Brown's pet beagle. Snoopy began his life in the strip as a fairly conventional dog, but eventually evolved into perhaps the strip's most dynamic character—and among the most recognizable...
sessions on the typewriter usually began with It was a dark and stormy night
It was a dark and stormy night
"It was a dark and stormy night" is an infamous phrase written by Victorian novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton at the beginning of his 1830 novel Paul Clifford. The annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest uses the phrase as a signifier of purple prose...
. The same words also form the first sentence of Madeleine L'Engle’s Newbery Medal
Newbery Medal
The John Newbery Medal is a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association . The award is given to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. The award has been given since 1922. ...
-winning novel A Wrinkle in Time
A Wrinkle in Time
A Wrinkle in Time is a science fantasy novel by Madeleine L'Engle, first published in 1962. The story revolves around a young girl whose father, a government scientist, has gone missing after working on a mysterious project called a tesseract. The book won a Newbery Medal, Sequoyah Book Award, and...
. Similar wording appears in Edgar Allan Poe's 1831 short story, The Bargain Lost, although not at the very beginning. It reads:
It was a dark and stormy night. The rain fell in cataracts.Written a year after Paul Clifford
Paul Clifford
Paul Clifford is a novel published in 1830 by English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton. It tells the life of Paul Clifford, a man who leads a dual life as both a criminal and an upscale gentleman...
, it appears to be Poe's deliberate mocking of Lord Lytton's opening line.
Operas
Several of Bulwer-Lytton's novels were made into operaOpera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
s, one of which, Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen
Rienzi
Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen is an early opera by Richard Wagner in five acts, with the libretto written by the composer after Bulwer-Lytton's novel of the same name . The title is commonly shortened to Rienzi...
by Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
, eventually became more famous than the novel. Leonora
Leonora (opera)
Leonora, ossia L’amore coniugale is an opera in two acts by the Italian composer Ferdinando Paer. The libretto, by Giovanni Schmidt, is based on Léonore ou L’Amour conjugal by Jean-Nicolas Bouilly, which was also the source of Beethoven's Fidelio...
by William Henry Fry
William Henry Fry
For the woodcarver and gilder, see William H. Fry.William Henry Fry was a pioneering American composer, music critic, and journalist. Fry was the first person born in the United States to write for a large symphony orchestra, and the first to compose a publicly performed opera...
, the first opera composed in the United States of America, is based on Bulwer-Lytton's play The Lady of Lyons
The Lady of Lyons
The Lady of Lyons; or, Love and Pride, commonly known as The Lady of Lyons, is a five act romantic melodrama written in 1838 by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton...
.
Magazines
In 1831 Bulwer-Lytton became the editor of the New Monthly but he resigned the following year. In 1841, he started the Monthly Chronicle, a semi-scientific magazine. During his career he wrote poetry, prose, and stage plays; his last novel was Kenelm Chillingly, which was in course of publication in Blackwood’s MagazineBlackwood's Magazine
Blackwood's Magazine was a British magazine and miscellany printed between 1817 and 1980. It was founded by the publisher William Blackwood and was originally called the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine. The first number appeared in April 1817 under the editorship of Thomas Pringle and James Cleghorn...
at the time of his death in 1873.
Translations
Bulwer-Lytton's works of fiction and non-fiction were translated in his day and since then into many languages, including Serbian (by Laza KosticLaza Kostic
Laza Kostić was a Serbian poet, prose writer, lawyer, philosopher, polyglot, publicist, and politician, considered to be one of the greatest minds of Serbian literature.-Biography:...
), German, Russian, Norwegian, Swedish, French, Finnish, and Spanish. In 1879, his Ernest Maltravers was the first complete novel from the West to be translated into Japanese.
Novels
- Leila: or The Siege of Granada
- Calderon, the Courtier
- The Pilgrims of the Rhine
- Falkland (1827)
- Pelham: or The Adventures of a Gentleman (1828)
- The Disowned (1829)
- Devereux (1829)
- Paul CliffordPaul CliffordPaul Clifford is a novel published in 1830 by English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton. It tells the life of Paul Clifford, a man who leads a dual life as both a criminal and an upscale gentleman...
(1830) - Eugene Aram (1832)
- Godolphin (1833)
- Falkland (1834)
- The Last Days of PompeiiThe Last Days of PompeiiThe Last Days of Pompeii is a novel written by the baron Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1834. Once a very widely read book and now relatively neglected, it culminates in the cataclysmic destruction of the city of Pompeii by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.The novel uses its characters to contrast...
(1834) - Rienzi, the last of the Roman tribunes (1835)
- The Student (1835)
- Ernest Maltravers (1837)
- Alice (1838)
- Night and Morning (1841)
- ZanoniZanoniZanoni is an 1842 novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, a story of love and occult aspiration. By way of introduction, the author confesses: "...It so chanced that some years ago, in my younger days, whether of authorship or life, I felt the desire to make myself acquainted with the true origins and...
(1842) - The Last of the BaronsThe Last of the BaronsThe Last of the Barons is a historical novel by the English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton first published in 1843. Its plot revolves around the power struggle between the English King Edward IV and his powerful minister Earl of Warwick...
(1843) - Lucretia (1846)
- Harold, the Last of the Saxons (1848)
- The Caxtons: A Family Picture (1849)
- My Novel, or Varieties in English Life (1853)
- The Haunted and the Haunters or The House and the Brain (1859)
- What Will He Do With It? (1858)
- A Strange Story (1862)
- The Coming Race (1871), republished as Vril: The Power of the Coming RaceVrilVril, the Power of the Coming Race is a 1871 science fiction novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, originally printed as The Coming Race. Many early readers believed that its account of a superior subterranean master race and the energy-form called "Vril" was accurate, to the extent that some theosophists...
- Kenelm Chillingly (1873)
- The Parisiens (1873 unfinished)
Verse
- Ismael (1820)
- The New Timon (1846), an attack on TennysonAlfred Tennyson, 1st Baron TennysonAlfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language....
published anonymously - King Arthur (1848-9)
- Glenaveril or The metamorphoses - A poem in six books (1885)
Plays
- The Lady of LyonsThe Lady of LyonsThe Lady of Lyons; or, Love and Pride, commonly known as The Lady of Lyons, is a five act romantic melodrama written in 1838 by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton...
(1838) - Richelieu (1839), adapted for the 1935 film Cardinal RichelieuCardinal Richelieu (film)Cardinal Richelieu is a 1935 American historical film directed by Rowland V. Lee and starring George Arliss, Maureen O'Sullivan, Edward Arnold and Cesar Romero...
- MoneyMoney (play)Money is a comic play by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. It premiered at the Theatre Royal Haymarket on 8 December 1840.-Production history:The play was revived at the Royal National Theatre in 1999, directed by John Caird and with a cast including Jasper Britton, Roger Allam, Simon Russell Beale, Sophie...
(1840)
External links
Bulwer-Lytton ebooks- Works by Edward Bulwer-Lytton at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
Other links
- Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton (1803–73)
- Dickens or Bulwer? A quiz to tell the difference between their prose.
- John S. Moore's essay on Bulwer-Lytton
- Edward Bulwer-Lytton biography and works
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