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Bulwer Lytton Edward George
(1803–1873)

Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton was an English novelist, poet, playwright, and politician. Lord Lytton was a florid, popular writer of his day, who coined such phrases as "the great unwashed", "pursuit of the almighty dollar", "the pen is mightier than the sword", and the infamous incipit "It was a dark and stormy night." Despite his popularity in his heyday, today his name is known as a byword for bad writing. San Jose State University’s annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for bad writing is named after him.

He was the youngest son of General William Earle Bulwer of Heydon Hall and Wood Dalling, Norfolk and Elizabeth Barbara Lytton, daughter of Richard Warburton Lytton of Knebworth, Hertfordshire. He had two brothers, William Earle Lytton Bulwer (1799–1877) and (William) Henry Lytton Earle Bulwer (1801–1872), afterwards Lord Dalling.

Lord Lytton's original surname was Bulwer, the names 'Earle' and 'Lytton' were middle names. On 20th February 1844 he assumed the name and arms of Lytton by royal licence and his surname then became 'Bulwer-Lytton'. His widowed mother had done the same in 1811. His brothers were always simply surnamed 'Bulwer'.

Lord Lytton's father died when he was four years old, after which his mother moved to London. A delicate and neurotic, but precocious, child, he was sent to various boarding schools, where he was always discontented until a 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 moved shortly afterwards to Trinity Hall, and in 1825 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 again without serving, and in August 1827 married, in opposition to his mother’s wishes, Rosina Doyle Wheeler (1802–1882). Upon their marriage, his mother withdrew his allowance, and he was forced to set to work seriously.

His writing and his efforts in the political arena took a toll upon his marriage to Rosina, and they were legally separated in 1836. Three years later, she published a novel called Cheveley, or the Man of Honour, in which Lord Lytton (then still surnamed Bulwer) was bitterly caricatured. In June 1858, when her husband was standing as parliamentary candidate for Hertfordshire, she appeared at the hustings and indignantly denounced him. She was consequently placed under restraint as insane, but liberated a few weeks later. This was chronicled in her book A Blighted Life. For years she continued her attacks upon her husband’s character; she would outlive him by nine years.

Lord Lytton began his career as a follower of Jeremy Bentham. 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 1838, then at the height of his popularity, he was created a baronet, and on succeeding to the Knebworth estate in 1843 added Lytton to his surname, under the terms of his mother’s will. In 1845, he left Parliament and spent some years in continental travel, reentering the political field in 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. 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 Rivers, was renamed in his honour as Lytton, British Columbia.

Lord Lytton's literary career began in 1820, with the publication of his first book of poems, and spanned much of the nineteenth century. He wrote in a variety of genres, including historical fiction, mystery, romance, the occult, and science fiction.

In 1828 he attracted general attention with Pelham, a humorous, intimate study of the dandyism of the age which kept gossips busy in identifying characters with public figures of the time. A highly melodramatic sub-plot is interwoven. By 1833, he had reached the height of his popularity with Godolphin, followed by The Pilgrims of the Rhine (1834), The Last Days of Pompeii (1834), Rienzi (1835), and Harold: Last of the Saxon Kings (1848). The Last Days of Pompeii was inspired by the painting on the same subject by Russian painter Karl Briullov (Carlo Brullo) which Bulwer-Lytton saw in Milan. He also wrote The Haunted and the Haunters (1857), also known as The House and the Brain.

Pelham had been partly inspired by Benjamin Disraeli’s first novel Vivian Grey. Lord Lytton was an admirer of Benjamin’s father Isaac D’Israeli, himself a noted literary figure, and had corresponded with him. Lord Lytton and D'Israeli began corresponding themselves in the late 1820s, and met for the first time in March of 1830, when D'Israeli dined at Lord Lytton’s house. Also present that evening were Charles Pelham Villiers and Alexander Cockburn. Although young at the time, Villiers went on to an exceptionally long parliamentary career, while Cockburn became Lord Chief Justice of England in 1859.

He penned many other works, including The Coming Race (also reprinted as Vril: The Power of the Coming Race), which drew heavily on his interest in the occult and contributed to the birth of the science fiction genre. Some believe the book helped to inspire Nazi mysticism. Unquestionably, its story of a subterranean race of men waiting to reclaim the surface is one of the first science fiction novels. His play, Money, was produced at Prince of Wales's Theatre in 1872.

Austria, 1970, The Beggar Student

Austria, 1992, Scenes from «The Birdseller» and «The Beggar Student»