Edward Lytton Biography

Dromo's Den

BULWER-LYTTON, Edward George Earle, first Lord Lytton (1803–73). An English novelist, born in London, May 25, 1803. He was the youngest son of William Earle Bulwer, of Heydon Hall, Norfolk, and Elizabeth Barbara Lytton, of Knebworth, Hertfordshire. His father died in 1807; and on the death of his mother in 1843, Bulwer assumed her surname. After attending various schools he proceeded to Cambridge, and graduated B.A. from Trinity Hall in 1826. At the university he read extensively in history, won the chancellor’s medal for a poem, and was regarded as one of the best speakers in the Union Society. Parts of 1825 and 1826 he passed in Paris, where he was admitted into the "most brilliant houses of the old noblesse." He returned to England, a typical dandy of the period, and married (1827) a clever Irish girl named Rosina Doyle Wheeler. As the marriage caused an estrangement between mother and son, Bulwer was thrown largely on his own resources for a living. He wrote extensively for the magazines and the annuals and produced novel after novel. The marriage proved most unhappy, and a legal separation was granted June 14, 1836. On the death of his mother he succeeded to the Knebworth estate. Bulwer sat in Parliament during two long periods, first as a Protectionist Liberal and then as a Conservative (1831–41 and 1852–66). In 1858 he was appointed Secretary of State for the Colonies, and in 1866 was raised to the peerage as Baron Lytton. Though not a ready debater, he succeeded well with prepared speeches. He died in Torquay, Jan. 18, 1873, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Bulwer was a versatile writer. He composed verse at the age of seven and published a volume when a schoolboy (1820). Other volumes followed in 1823, 1825, and 1827. At this time Bulwer was passing through several phases of Byronic influence. Among his later poems are The New Timon (1846), King Arthur (1848), and St. Stephens (1860). The first has become memorable for a fierce assault on Tennyson and for Tennyson’s reply in Punch. Of the various metres Bulwer essayed, he succeeded best in the heroic couplet. He wrote several plays, which, though mediocre as literature, have long kept the stage; among them are The Lady of Lyons (1838), Richelieu (1838), and Money (1840). Attempting the work of Gibbon, he wrote Athens: Its Rise and Fall (1837), but it was never completed. As a novelist he played many parts, adapting himself to public taste. He began with Falkland (1827), an interesting imitation of the Sorrows of Werther. His success as a novelist was assured by Pelham (1828), deemed by many critics the most delightful of all his books. He had now passed beyond the influence of Byron and German sentimentalism and presented the public with a new type of gentleman, the cynic in black waistcoat moving in high society. Pelham became in a way the type of the novel of contemporary manners to which Bulwer reverted at intervals: as in Ernest Maltravers (1837); Alice (1838); Night and Morning (1841); The Caxtons (1850); My Novel (1853); and Kenelm Chillingly (1873). The last three have the added aim of humor in the manner of Sterne. Taking up the criminal novel as left by William Godwin (q.v.), Bulwer published Paul Clifford (1830) and Eugene Aram (1832). An experiment with the historical novel in Devereux (1829) led to the widely popular story, The Last Days of Pompeii (1834); Rienzi (1835); Leila, or the Siege of Granada (1838); The Last of the Barons (1843), by far his most solid achievement in historical fiction; Harold (1848); and Pausanius the Spartan (1876). Romance was essayed in The Pilgrims of the Rhine (1834); Zanoni (1842); The Haunted and the Haunters (1859), a remarkable story of the supernatural; of which the author wrote several versions, one of them being known as The House and the Brain; and A Strange Story (1862) expanded from The Haunted and the Haunters; and The Coming Race (1871). With the critics Bulwer has never found much favor. His work possesses none of the art of the great craftsmen, and it is affected in sentiment and style. But in spite of these faults, which were often pointed out by his reviewers, Bulwer gained the attention of the public at large and still holds it. The Caxtons and The Coming Race, though published anonymously to test the public, were as well received as any of the other novels. Bulwer’s continued popularity rests upon the fact that he had something to say that is still of interest. His manner is wisely overlooked.

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XIV (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 526.