{{Short description|British statesman and writer (1803–1873)}} {{distinguish|text=his son, Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, Governor-General of India}} {{for|the British general|Edward Bulwer (British Army officer)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2021}} {{Use British English|date=November 2017}} {{Infobox officeholder | honorific_prefix = The Right Honourable | name = The Lord Lytton | honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|GCMG|PC}} | image = Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton by Henry William Pickersgill.jpg | caption = ''Portrait of Edward Bulwer-Lytton'' by Henry William Pickersgill, 1831 | party = Whig (1831–1841)<br />Conservative (1851–1866) | monarch1 = Victoria | prime_minister1 = The Earl of Derby | office1 = Secretary of State for the Colonies | term_start1 = 5 June 1858 | predecessor1 = Lord Stanley | term_end1 = 11 June 1859 | successor1 = The Duke of Newcastle | birth_name = Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer<ref name="ODNBLytton"/> | birth_date = {{birth date|1803|5|25|df=y}} | birth_place = London, England | death_date = {{death date and age|1873|1|18|1803|5|25|df=y}} | death_place = Torquay, England | spouse = {{marriage|Rosina Doyle Wheeler|1827}} | children = 2, including Robert | parents = William Earle Bulwer<br />Elizabeth Barbara Warburton-Lytton | alma_mater = Trinity College, Cambridge<br />Trinity Hall, Cambridge | module = {{Infobox writer|embed=yes |genres = {{cslist|Gothic|silver fork}} |notableworks = ''Pelham'' }} }}

'''Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton''', GCMG, PC ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|b|ʊ|l|w|ər}}; 25 May 1803 – 18 January 1873) was an English writer and politician. He served as a Whig member of Parliament from 1831 to 1841 and a Conservative from 1851 to 1866. He was Secretary of State for the Colonies from June 1858 to June 1859, as which he selected Richard Clement Moody to found British Columbia. He was created Baron Lytton of Knebworth in 1866.<ref name="ODNBLytton">{{Cite ODNB |title=Lytton, Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer [formerly Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer], first Baron Lytton |last=Brown |first=Andrew |date=23 September 2004 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/17314}}</ref><ref>{{London Gazette |issue=23137 |date=13 July 1866 |page=3984}}</ref>

Bulwer-Lytton's works were well known in his time. He coined famous phrases like "pursuit of the almighty dollar", "the pen is mightier than the sword", "dweller on the threshold", "the great unwashed", and the opening phrase (incipit) "It was a dark and stormy night". <!--Yet his standing declined and he is little read today.{{citation needed|date=December 2020}} -->The sardonic Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, held annually from 1982 to 2024, claimed to seek the "opening sentence of the worst of all possible novels".<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2012/may/17/dickens-browning-lear-reputation |title=Dickens, Browning and Lear: what's in a reputation? |first=Robert |last=McCrum |newspaper=The Guardian |date=17 May 2012 |via=www.theguardian.com |access-date=28 March 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180329054238/https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2012/may/17/dickens-browning-lear-reputation |archive-date=29 March 2018 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |author=Christopher John Murray |title=Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760–1850 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8GS8DWMLRYEC&pg=PA139 |year=2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1135455798 |pages=139–}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://io9.gizmodo.com/an-appreciation-of-lord-bulwer-lytton-5780430 |title=An Appreciation of Lord Bulwer-Lytton |first=Jess |last=Nevins |website=io9 |date=10 March 2011 |access-date=13 March 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190213024137/https://io9.gizmodo.com/an-appreciation-of-lord-bulwer-lytton-5780430 |archive-date=13 February 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>https://www.nytimes.com/1984/05/13/us/wonderfully-terrible-writers-discovered.html {{dead link|date=June 2022}}</ref>

==Life== Bulwer was born on 25 May 1803 to General William Earle Bulwer of Heydon Hall and Wood Dalling, Norfolk, and Elizabeth Barbara Lytton, daughter of Richard Warburton Lytton of Knebworth House, Hertfordshire. He had two older brothers, William Earle Lytton Bulwer (1799–1877) and Henry (1801–1872; later Baron Dalling and Bulwer).{{sfn|Waugh|1911|p=185}}

His father died and his mother moved to London when he was four years old. When he was 15, a tutor named Wallington, who tutored him at Ealing, encouraged him to publish an immature work: ''Ishmael and Other Poems''. Around this time, Bulwer fell in love, but the woman's father induced her to marry another man. She died about the time that Bulwer went to Cambridge and he stated that her loss affected all his subsequent life.{{sfn |Waugh |1911 |p=185}}

In 1822 Bulwer-Lytton entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he met John Auldjo, but soon moved to Trinity Hall. In 1825 he won the Chancellor's Gold Medal for English verse.<ref>{{acad |id=BLWR821EG |name=<nowiki>Bulwer [post Bulwer-Lytton], Edward George [Earle] Lytton</nowiki>}}</ref> In the following year he took his BA degree and printed for private circulation a small volume of poems, ''Weeds and Wild Flowers''.{{sfn |Waugh |1911 |p=185}} He purchased an army commission in 1826, but sold it in 1829 without serving.<ref>[http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/bulwer-edward-1803-1873] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170930175431/http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/bulwer-edward-1803-1873|date=30 September 2017}} History of Parliament Online article.</ref>

[[File:Edward Bulmer-Lytton-source for Aroldo by Verdi.jpg|thumb|upright|Edward Bulwer-Lytton. His ''Harold: The Last of the Saxon Kings'' (1848) was the source for Verdi's opera ''Aroldo''.]] In August 1827, he married Rosina Doyle Wheeler (1802–1882), a noted Irish beauty, but against the wishes of his mother, who withdrew his allowance, forcing him to work for a living.{{sfn |Waugh |1911 |p=185}} They had two children, Emily Elizabeth Bulwer-Lytton (1828–1848), and (Edward) Robert Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton (1831–1891) who became Governor-General and Viceroy of British India (1876–1880). His writing and political work strained their marriage and his infidelity embittered Rosina.<ref name="Drabble2000pp147">{{Cite book |last=Drabble |first=Margaret |year=2000 |title=The Oxford Companion to English Literature |url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont00drab_958 |url-access=limited |edition=sixth|page= [https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont00drab_958/page/n162 147] |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford; New York |isbn=0198662440 }}</ref>

In 1833, they separated acrimoniously and in 1836 the separation became legal.<ref name="Drabble2000pp147"/> Three years later, Rosina published ''Cheveley, or the Man of Honour'' (1839), satirising her husband's hypocrisy.<ref name="Drabble2000pp147"/>

In June 1858, when her husband was standing as parliamentary candidate for Hertfordshire, she denounced him at the hustings. He retaliated by threatening her publishers, withholding her allowance and denying her access to their children. Finally he had her committed to a mental asylum, but she was released a few weeks later after a public outcry.<ref name="Drabble2000pp147"/> This she chronicled in a memoir, ''A Blighted Life'' (1880).<ref>{{Cite book |title=A Blighted Life |url=http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Blighted_Life |author=Lady Lytton |year=1880 |publisher=The London Publishing Office |location=London |access-date=28 November 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100226020123/http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Blighted_Life |archive-date=26 February 2010 |url-status=live |author-link=Rosina Bulwer Lytton }} (Online text at wikisource.org)</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Life of Rosina, Lady Lytton, with Numerous Extracts from her Ms. Autobiography and Other Original Documents, published in vindication of her memory |url=https://archive.org/details/liferosinaladyl00devegoog |last=Devey |first=Louisa |year=1887 |publisher=Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co |location=London |access-date=28 November 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110628231618/http://www.archive.org/details/liferosinaladyl00devegoog |archive-date=28 June 2011 |url-status=live }} Full text at Internet Archive (archive.org)</ref> She continued attacking her husband's character for several years.{{sfn |Waugh |1911 |p=186}} thumb|upright|left|Bulwer-Lytton in later life The death of Bulwer's mother in 1843 meant his "exhaustion of toil and study had been completed by great anxiety and grief", and by "about the January of 1844, I was thoroughly shattered".<ref name="LyttonWaterpatient">{{Cite book |title=in Pamphlets and Sketches |chapter=Confessions of a Water-Patient |chapter-url=https://archive.org/stream/pamphletsandsket00lyttuoft#page/48/mode/2up |author=Lord Lytton |edition=Knebworth |year =1875 |publisher=George Routledge and Sons |location=London |pages=49–75 |access-date=28 November 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120324090403/http://archive.org/stream/pamphletsandsket00lyttuoft#page/48/mode/2up |archive-date=24 March 2012 |url-status=live }} Full text at Internet Archive (archive.org)</ref><ref name="Bulwersletter">{{Cite book |last=Bulwer |editor=R. T. Trall |title=The Herald of Health, and The Water-cure journal (see title page of January edition, p. 5) |chapter=Bulwer's Letter on Water-Cure |volume=35–36 |date=April 1863 |pages=149–154 (see p. 151) |publisher=R. T. Trall & Co |location=New York |chapter-url=http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015066610265;q1=captain;start=1;size=100;page=root;view=image;seq=141;num=149 |access-date=26 November 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181119070157/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015066610265;q1=captain;start=1;size=100;page=root;view=image;seq=141;num=149 |archive-date=19 November 2018 |url-status=live }}</ref>

In his mother's room at Knebworth House, which he inherited, he "had inscribed above the mantelpiece a request that future generations preserve the room as his beloved mother had used it". It remains hardly changed to this day.<ref>{{Citation |title=Knebworth House Antique Photographs |chapter=Mrs. Bulwer-Lytton's Room |chapter-url=http://www.knebworthhouse.com/specialtours/antiquephotos/page7.html |access-date=28 November 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110713162832/http://www.knebworthhouse.com/specialtours/antiquephotos/page7.html |archive-date=13 July 2011 |url-status=live }}</ref>

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.{{sfn |Waugh |1911 |p=186}} His widowed mother had done the same in 1811. His brothers remained plain "Bulwer".{{citation needed|date=December 2022}}

By chance, Bulwer-Lytton 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!".<ref name="LyttonWaterpatient" /><ref name=Bulwersletter /> 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" (at the former Marienberg Convent at Boppard), after developing a cold and fever upon his return home.<ref name="LyttonWaterpatient"/>

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".<ref>R. A. Gilbert, "The Supposed Rosy Crucian Society", in Caron et al., eds., ''Ésotérisme, Gnoses et Imaginaire Symbolique'', Leuven: Peeters, 2001, p. 399.</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.fulham-fc.co.uk/stadium/ |title=The Stadium History of Fulham FC |date=23 July 2020 |access-date=19 April 2024}}</ref>

Bulwer-Lytton had long suffered from a disease of the ear, and for the last two or three years of his life lived in Torquay nursing his health.<ref name="mitchell(2003)pp232"/> After an operation to cure deafness, an abscess formed in the ear and burst; he endured intense pain for a week and died at 2&nbsp;am on 18 January 1873, just short of his 70th birthday.<ref name="mitchell(2003)pp232">{{Cite book |last=Mitchell |first=Leslie George |title=Bulwer Lytton: The Rise and Fall of a Victorian Man of Letters |year=2003 |publisher=Hambledon Continuum |location=London; New York |isbn=1852854235 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/bulwerlyttonrise0000mitc }}</ref> The cause of death was unclear but it was thought the infection had affected his brain and caused a fit.<ref name="mitchell(2003)pp232"/> Rosina outlived him by nine years. Against his wishes, Bulwer-Lytton was honoured with a burial in Westminster Abbey.<ref name="Westminster">{{cite web |url=http://www.westminster-abbey.org/history-research/monuments-gravestones/people/32932 |title=Famous people / organisations |first=PixelToCode |last=pixeltocode.uk |website=Westminster Abbey |access-date=29 August 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080107172839/http://www.westminster-abbey.org/history-research/monuments-gravestones/people/32932 |archive-date=7 January 2008 |url-status=live }}</ref> His historical romance ''Pausanias the Spartan'' was left unfinished at his death and was edited and published posthumously by his son in 1876.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lytton |first=Edward Bulwer Lytton Baron |url=https://www.google.co.il/books/edition/Pausanias_the_Spartan/S4g6AQAAMAAJ |title=Pausanias the Spartan: An Unfinished Historical Romance |date=1876 |publisher=G. Routledge |language=en}}</ref>

==Political career== [[File:Edward Bulwer-Lytton Vanity Fair 29 October 1870.jpg|left|thumb|upright|Caricature by "Ape" published in ''Vanity Fair'' in 1870]] Bulwer began his political career as a follower of Jeremy Bentham. In 1831 he was elected member for St Ives, 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 lead in securing the reduction, after he had vainly supported the repeal, of the newspaper stamp duties. His influence was perhaps most keenly felt after the Whig Party's dismissal from office in 1834, when he issued a pamphlet entitled ''A Letter to a Late Cabinet Minister on the Crisis''.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Pamphlets and Sketches |chapter=The Present Crisis. A Letter to a Late Cabinet Minister |chapter-url=https://archive.org/stream/pamphletsandsket00lyttuoft#page/viii/mode/2up |author=Lord Lytton |edition=Knebworth |year=1875 |publisher=George Routledge and Sons |location=London |pages=9–48 |access-date=28 November 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120324090403/http://archive.org/stream/pamphletsandsket00lyttuoft#page/viii/mode/2up |archive-date=24 March 2012 |url-status=live }} Full text at Internet Archive (archive.org).</ref> Lord Melbourne, the Prime Minister, offered him a lordship of the Admiralty, which he declined as likely to interfere with his activity as an author.{{sfn |Waugh |1911 |p=186}}

Bulwer was created a baronet, of Knebworth House in the County of Hertford, in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom, in 1838.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=19631 |date=3 July 1838 |page=1488}}</ref> In 1841, he left Parliament and spent much of his time in travel.{{sfn |Waugh |1911 |p=186}} He did not return to politics until 1852, when, having differed from Lord John Russell over the Corn Laws, he stood for Hertfordshire as a Conservative. Bulwer-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 Benjamin Disraeli. He was comparatively inactive in the House of Lords.{{sfn |Waugh |1911 |p=186}} In 1870 he was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George.<ref>[https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/23578/page/335 "No. 23578".] ''The London Gazette''. 18 January 1870. p. 335.</ref>

"Just prior to his government's defeat in 1859 the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, notified Sir George Ferguson Bowen of his appointment as Governor of the new colony to be known as 'Queen's Land'." The draft letter was ranked #4 in the 'Top 150: Documenting Queensland' exhibition when it toured to venues around Queensland from February 2009 to April 2010.<ref>{{cite web |author=corporateName=Queensland State Archives |title=Number 4 – Draft letter from Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Secretary of State for the Colonies to Governor Bowen |url=http://www.archives.qld.gov.au/Researchers/Exhibitions/Top150/001-025/Pages/004.aspx |url-status=live |archive-url=https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20150404204257/http://www.archives.qld.gov.au/Researchers/Exhibitions/Top150/001-025/Pages/004.aspx |archive-date=4 April 2015 |access-date=6 August 2020 |website=Number 4 – Draft letter from Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Secretary of State for the Colonies to Governor Bowen |date=5 April 2015 |via=National Library of Australia}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref> The exhibition was part of Queensland State Archives' events and exhibition program which contributed to the state's Q150 celebrations, marking the 150th anniversary of the separation of Queensland from New South Wales.<ref>{{Citation |author1=Queensland State Archives |title=Annual report |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/28725413 |date=2014 |publisher=Queensland State Archives |access-date=6 August 2020}}</ref>

===British Columbia=== When news of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush reached London, Bulwer-Lytton, as Secretary of State for the Colonies, requested that the War Office recommend a field officer, "a man of good judgement possessing a knowledge of mankind", to lead a Corps of 150 (later increased to 172) Royal Engineers, who had been selected for their "superior discipline and intelligence".<ref name="Jean Barman p. 71">Jean Barman, The West Beyond the West: A History of British Columbia, (Toronto: University of Toronto), p. 71.</ref> The War Office chose Richard Clement Moody, and Lord Lytton, who described Moody as his "distinguished friend",<ref name="Rambling Recollections"/> accepted the nomination in view of Moody's military record, his success as Governor of the Falkland Islands, and the distinguished record of his father, Colonel Thomas Moody, Kt. at the Colonial Office.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=5715 |title=Entry for Richard Clement Moody in Dictionary of Canadian Biography |year=2002 |access-date=11 March 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121011185856/http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=5715 |archive-date=11 October 2012 |url-status=live }}</ref> Moody was charged to establish British order and transform the newly established Colony of British Columbia into the British Empire's "bulwark in the farthest west"<ref>Donald J. Hauka, McGowan's War, Vancouver: 2003, New Star Books, p. 146.</ref> and "found a second England on the shores of the Pacific".<ref name="Jean Barman p. 71"/> Lytton desired to send to the colony "representatives of the best of British culture, not just a police force", sought men who possessed "courtesy, high breeding and urbane knowledge of the world",<ref>{{Cite book |last=Scott |first=Laura Elaine |title=The Imposition of British Culture as Portrayed in the New Westminster Capital Plan of 1859 to 1862 |year=1983 |publisher=Simon Fraser University |page=13}}</ref> and decided to send Moody, whom the Government considered to be the archetypal "English gentleman and British Officer"<ref>{{Cite book |last=Scott |first=Laura Elaine |title=The Imposition of British Culture as Portrayed in the New Westminster Capital Plan of 1859 to 1862 |year=1983 |publisher=Simon Fraser University |page=19}}</ref> at the head of the Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment, to whom he wrote an impassioned letter.<ref name="Rambling Recollections">{{Cite book |title=Rambling Recollections, Vol. 1 |last=Drummond |first=Sir Henry |page=272 |chapter=XXIII |year=1908 |publisher=Macmillan and Co., London}}</ref>

The former HBC Fort Dallas at Camchin, the confluence of the Thompson and the Fraser Rivers, was renamed in his honour by Governor Sir James Douglas in 1858 as Lytton, British Columbia.<ref>{{Cite news |author=The Canadian Press |title=Toff and prof to duke it out in literary slugfest |url= https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/toff-and-prof-to-duke-it-out-in-literary-slugfest-1.707984 |publisher=CBC News |date=17 August 2008 |access-date=18 August 2008 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090116064940/http://www.cbc.ca/arts/books/story/2008/08/17/writing-bad.html |archive-date=16 January 2009 |url-status=live |author-link=The Canadian Press}}</ref>

==Literary works== Bulwer-Lytton's literary career began in 1820 with the publication of a book of poems and spanned much of the 19th century. He wrote in a variety of genres, including historical fiction, mystery, romance, the occult and science fiction. He financed his extravagant way of life with a varied and prolific literary output, sometimes publishing anonymously.<ref name="Drabble2000pp147"/> [[File:Pelham.jpg|thumb|360px|right|1849 printing of ''Pelham'' with Hablot K. Browne (Phiz) frontispiece: Pelham's electioneering visit to the Rev. Combermere St Quintin, who is surprised at dinner with his family.]]

Bulwer-Lytton published ''Falkland'' in 1827, a novel which was only a moderate success.{{sfn |Waugh |1911 |p=185}} But ''Pelham'' brought him public acclaim in 1828 and established his reputation as a wit and dandy.<ref name="Drabble2000pp147"/> Its intricate plot and humorous, intimate portrayal of pre-Victorian dandyism kept gossips busy trying to associate public figures with characters in the book.{{sfn |Waugh |1911 |p=185}} ''Pelham'' resembled Benjamin Disraeli's first novel ''Vivian Grey'' (1827).<ref name="Drabble2000pp147"/> The character of the villainous Richard Crawford in ''The Disowned'', also published in 1828, borrowed much from that of banker and forger Henry Fauntleroy, who was hanged in London in 1824 before a crowd of some 100,000.<ref>Richard Davenport-Hines, "Fauntleroy, Henry (1784–1824)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (Oxford, UK: OUP, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/9212 Retrieved 12 October 2017.]</ref>

Bulwer-Lytton admired Disraeli'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 had a long parliamentary career, while Cockburn became Lord Chief Justice of England in 1859.

Bulwer-Lytton reached his height of popularity with the publication of ''England and the English'',<ref>{{cite web |title=Lord Beaconsfield's correspondence with his sister, 1832-1852 |website=Library of Congress |series=Harper's handy series |date=1886 |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/05000627/ |url-status=live |at=letter dated June 29, 1833 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200819030315/https://www.loc.gov/item/05000627/ |archive-date=19 August 2020 }}</ref> and ''Godolphin'' (1833).{{sfn |Waugh |1911 |p=186}} This was followed by ''The Pilgrims of the Rhine'' (1834), ''The Last Days of Pompeii'' (1834), ''Rienzi, Last of the Roman Tribunes'' about Cola di Rienzo (1835),<ref name="Drabble2000pp147"/> ''Ernest Maltravers; or, The Eleusinia'' (1837), ''Alice; or, The Mysteries'' (1838), ''Leila; or, The Siege of Granada'' (1838), and ''Harold: The Last of the Saxon Kings'' (1848).<ref name="Drabble2000pp147"/> ''The Last Days of Pompeii'' was inspired by Karl Briullov's painting ''The Last Day of Pompeii'', which Bulwer-Lytton saw in Milan.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Harris |first=Judith |title=Pompeii Awakened: A Story of Rediscovery |url=https://archive.org/details/pompeiiawakeneds0000harr |url-access=registration |year=2007 |publisher=I.B. Tauris |isbn=978-1845112417 |page=[https://archive.org/details/pompeiiawakeneds0000harr/page/166 166]}}</ref>

His ''New Timon'' lampooned Tennyson, who responded in kind.{{sfn |Waugh |1911 |p=186}} Bulwer-Lytton also wrote the horror story ''The Haunted and the Haunters; or, The House and the Brain'' (1859). Another novel with a supernatural theme was ''A Strange Story'' (1862), which was an influence on Bram Stoker's ''Dracula''.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w3-xlc8edbEC&q=%22A+Strange+Story+(1861),+which+was+to+influence+Bram+Stoker's+Dracula%22&pg=PR36 |title=The Coming Race |first=Edward |last=Bulwer-Lytton |year=2007 |publisher=Wesleyan University Press |via=Google Books |isbn=978-0819567352}}</ref>

Bulwer-Lytton wrote many other works, including ''Vril: The Power of the Coming Race'' (1871) which drew heavily on his interest in the occult and contributed to the early growth of the science fiction genre.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://io9.gizmodo.com/may-day-1871-the-day-science-fiction-was-invented-5796919 |title=May Day, 1871: The Day "Science Fiction" Was Invented |first=Jess |last=Nevins |website=io9 |date=29 April 2011 |access-date=13 March 2019 |archive-date=13 March 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190313062930/https://io9.gizmodo.com/may-day-1871-the-day-science-fiction-was-invented-5796919 |url-status=dead }}</ref> 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".<ref>{{Cite book |author=Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke |title=The Occult Roots Of Nazism |year=2004|orig-year=1985 |publisher=I.B. Tauris |isbn=1860649734}}</ref> His term "vril" lent its name to Bovril meat extract.<ref>{{cite web |title=Bovril |url=http://www.unilever.co.uk/brands/foodbrands/bovril.aspx |work=Unilever.co.uk |access-date=10 April 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120411060207/http://www.unilever.co.uk/brands/foodbrands/bovril.aspx |archive-date=11 April 2012 }}</ref> The book was also the theme of a fundraising event held at the Royal Albert Hall in 1891, the Vril-Ya Bazaar and Fete.<ref>{{cite news |title='The Coming Race' and 'Vril-Ya' Bazaar and Fete, in joint aid of The West End Hospital, and the School of Massage and Electricity |url=https://memories.royalalberthall.com/content/coming-race-and-vril-ya-bazaar-and-fete-joint-aid-west-end-hospital-and-school-massage-and-1 |newspaper=Royal Albert Hall Memories |date=27 August 2019 |access-date=29 March 2021 |archive-date=12 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210412195504/https://memories.royalalberthall.com/content/coming-race-and-vril-ya-bazaar-and-fete-joint-aid-west-end-hospital-and-school-massage-and-1 |url-status=dead }}</ref> "Vril" has been adopted by theosophists and occultists since the 1870s and became closely associated with the ideas of an esoteric neo-Nazism after 1945.<ref>Julian Strube. ''Vril. Eine okkulte Urkraft in Theosophie und esoterischem Neonazismus''. München/Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink 2013.</ref>

His play ''Money'' (1840) was first produced at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London, on 8 December 1840. The first American production was at the Old Park Theater in New York on 1 February 1841. Subsequent productions include the Prince of Wales's Theatre's in 1872 and as the inaugural play at the new California Theatre in San Francisco in 1869.<ref>Don B. Wilmeth 2007) ''The Cambridge Guide to American Theatre''.</ref>

Among Bulwer-Lytton's lesser-known contributions to literature was that he convinced Charles Dickens to revise the ending of ''Great Expectations'' to make it more palatable to the reading public, as in the original version of the novel, Pip and Estella unambiguously remain apart.<ref>John Forster's biography of Dickens</ref>

==Legacy== Bulwer-Lytton's works had an influence in a number of fields.

===Quotations=== Bulwer-Lytton's most famous quotation is "The pen is mightier than the sword" from his play ''Richelieu'':

<blockquote>beneath the rule of men entirely great, the pen is mightier than the sword</blockquote>

He popularized the phrase "pursuit of the almighty dollar" from his novel ''The Coming Race'',<ref> Edward Bulwer Lytton Baron Lytton, ''The Coming Race'' (London, England: William Blackwood and Sons, 1871), [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_LO8BAAAAQAAJ/page/n9 page 2] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130527081751/http://books.google.com/books?id=LO8BAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA2 |date=27 May 2013}} </ref> and he is credited with "the great unwashed", using this disparaging term in his 1830 novel ''Paul Clifford'':

<blockquote>He is certainly a man who bathes and "lives cleanly", (two especial charges preferred against him by Messrs. the Great Unwashed).<ref>{{Cite book |author=Edward Bulwer Lytton Baron Lytton |author2=Eric Robinson |title=Paul Clifford |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jZtCAQAAIAAJ&pg=RA1-PR5 |year=1838 |publisher=Baudry's European Library |page=x, footnote |access-date=7 June 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170508213524/https://books.google.com/books?id=jZtCAQAAIAAJ&pg=RA1-PR5|archive-date=8 May 2017 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all}}</ref> </blockquote>

===Theosophy=== The writers of theosophy were among those influenced by Bulwer-Lytton's work. Annie Besant and especially Helena Blavatsky incorporated his thoughts and ideas, particularly from ''The Last Days of Pompeii'', ''Vril, the Power of the Coming Race'' and ''Zanoni'' in her own books.<ref>Edward Bulwer-Lytton, ''The Coming Race'', Introduction by David Seed, Wesleyan University Press, 2007, [https://books.google.com/books?id=w3-xlc8edbEC&dq=%22The+Coming+Race+had+an+influence+on+figures+like+Madame+Blavatsky%22&pg=PR42 p. xlii] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170508222333/https://books.google.com/books?id=w3-xlc8edbEC&pg=PR42&lpg=PR42&dq=%22The+Coming+Race+had+an+influence+on+figures+like+Madame+Blavatsky%22&source=bl&ots=_VXvtB0qiU&sig=22O56HxmSUs0ESBLU3IsEp8d00g&hl=en&sa=X&ei=V7QFUu7VGMn24QT4zYDoAg&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22The%20Coming%20Race%20had%20an%20influence%20on%20figures%20like%20Madame%20Blavatsky%22&f=false |date=8 May 2017}}</ref><ref>Brian Stableford, ''The A to Z of Fantasy Literature'', Scarecrow Press, 2009, [https://books.google.com/books?id=7JKw5FYA4GgC&dq=%22Blavatsky+drew+a+good+deal+of+inspiration+from+Bulwer-Lytton%27s%22&pg=PA46 "Blavatsky, Madame (1831–1991)"].</ref>

===Contest=== Bulwer-Lytton's name lives on in the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, in which contestants think up terrible openings for imaginary novels, inspired by the first line of his 1830 novel ''Paul Clifford'':<ref>Edward Bulwer Lytton, ''Paul Clifford'' (Paris, France: Baudry's European Library, 1838), [https://books.google.com/books?id=jZtCAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA1 page 1] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131127161551/http://books.google.com/books?id=jZtCAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA1 |date=27 November 2013}}</ref>

<blockquote>It was a dark and stormy night; 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.</blockquote>

Entrants in the contest seek to capture the rapid changes in point of view, the florid language, and the atmosphere of the full sentence.<ref>{{cite web |last=Infopédia |title=Edward Bulwer-Lytton - Infopédia |url=https://www.infopedia.pt/$edward-bulwer-lytton |access-date=2021-08-15 |website=Infopédia - Dicionários Porto Editora |language=pt}}</ref> The opening was popularized by the ''Peanuts'' comic strip, in which Snoopy's sessions on the typewriter usually began with "It was a dark and stormy night".<ref>{{cite news |first=Tracy |last=Mumford |title=Who really wrote 'it was a dark and stormy night'? |url=https://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/10/27/bcst-books-dark-and-stormy-night |work=MPR |date=2015-10-27}}</ref> 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:

<blockquote>It was a dark and stormy night. The rain fell in cataracts; and drowsy citizens started, from dreams of the deluge, to gaze upon the boisterous sea, which foamed and bellowed for admittance into the proud towers and marble palaces. Who would have thought of passions so fierce in that calm water that slumbers all day long? At a slight alabaster stand, trembling beneath the ponderous tomes which it supported, sat the hero of our story.</blockquote>

===Operas=== Several of Bulwer-Lytton's novels were made into operas. One of them, ''Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen'' (1842) by Richard Wagner,<ref>{{cite book |first=Barry |last=Millington |title=The Wagner Compendium|location=London |publisher=Thames and Hudson |year=2001 |page=275 |isbn=9780500282748 |url=https://archive.org/details/wagnercompendium0000unse/page/274/mode/2up}}</ref> eventually became more famous than the novel.{{citation needed|date=January 2021}} ''Leonora'' (1846) by William Henry Fry, the first European-styled "grand" opera composed in the United States, is based on Bulwer-Lytton's play ''The Lady of Lyons'',<ref>{{cite book |last1=Howard |first1=John Tasker |last2=Bellows |first2=George Kent |title=A Short History of Music in America |location=New York |publisher=Thomas Y. Crowell |year=1967 |page=128 |url=https://archive.org/details/shorthistoryofmu00howa_0/page/128/mode/2up}}</ref> as is Frederic Cowen's first opera ''Pauline'' (1876).<ref>{{cite book |first=Eric Walter |last=White |title=The Rise of English Opera |year=1951 |location=London |publisher=J. Lehmann |page=118 |url=https://archive.org/details/riseofenglishope0000whit_j7l0/page/118/mode/2up}}</ref> Verdi rival Errico Petrella's most successful opera, ''Jone'' (1858), was based on Bulwer-Lytton's ''The Last Days of Pompeii'', and was performed all over the world until the 1880s, and in Italy until 1910.<ref>{{cite book |first=Alfred |last=Loewenberg |title=Annals of Opera, 1597–1940 |location=Totowa, N.J. |publisher=Rowman and Littlefield |year=1978 |isbn=9780874718515 |at=col. 930–931 |url=https://archive.org/details/annalsofopera1590000loew/page/n493/mode/2up}}</ref> ''Harold: The Last of the Saxon Kings'' (1848) provided character names (but little else) for Verdi's opera ''Aroldo'' (1857).<ref>{{cite book |first=Jullian |last=Budden |title=The Operas of Verdi |volume=2 |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1978 |page=337 |url=https://archive.org/details/operasofverdi0002budd/page/336/mode/2up}}</ref>

===Theatrical adaptations=== Shortly after their first publication, ''The Last Days of Pompeii'', ''Rienzi'', and ''Ernest Maltravers'' all received successful stage performances in New York. The plays were written by Louisa Medina, one of the most successful playwrights of the 19th century. ''The Last Days of Pompeii'' had the longest continuous stage run in New York at the time with 29 straight performances.<ref>''Plays by Early American Women, 1775-1850'', Amelia Howe Kritzer, Ed. (1998) Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.</ref>

===Magazines=== In addition to his political and literary work, Bulwer-Lytton became the editor of the ''New Monthly'' in 1831, 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 Magazine'' at the time of his death in 1873.{{sfn|Waugh|1911|p=186}}

===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 Kostic), 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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Keene |first=Donald |title=Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature of the Modern Era |year=1984 |publisher=Holt, Rinehart and Winston|location=New York |isbn=0030628148 |page=62}}</ref>

===Place names=== In Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, the suburb of Lytton, the town of Bulwer on Moreton Island (Moorgumpin) and the neighbourhood (former island) of Bulwer Island are named after him.<ref>{{Cite QPN|43599|Lytton|access-date=2 September 2015}}</ref><ref name="qpnt">{{cite QPN|5168|Bulwer|town in City of Brisbane|access-date=28 December 2017}}</ref><ref>{{Cite QPN|5169|Bulwer Island|neighbourhood in the City of Brisbane|access-date=27 October 2020}}</ref> The township of Lytton, Quebec (today part of Montcerf-Lytton) was named after him<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.toponymie.gouv.qc.ca/ct/ToposWeb/fiche.aspx?no_seq=37667 |language=fr |title=Lytton |publisher=Commission de toponymie du Québec |work=Banque de noms de lieux du Québec |access-date=16 May 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303173531/http://www.toponymie.gouv.qc.ca/CT/toposweb/fiche.aspx?no_seq=37667 |archive-date=3 March 2016 |url-status=live }}</ref> as was Lytton, British Columbia, and Lytton, Iowa. Lytton Road in Gisborne, New Zealand, was named after the novelist. Later a state secondary school, Lytton High School, was founded in the road.<ref name="gisborne">{{Cite book |last1=Meade |first1=Geoffrey Thomas |title=History of the school, 1961–1985: Lytton High School |date=1986 |publisher=Thomas Adams Printing |page=3}}</ref> Also in New Zealand, Bulwer is a small locality in Waihinau Bay in the outer Pelorus Sound, New Zealand. It can be reached by 77&nbsp;km of winding, mostly unsealed, road from Rai Valley. A weekly mail boat service delivers mail and also offers passenger services. In London, Lytton Road in the suburb of Pinner, where the novelist lived, is named after him.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Weinreb, Ben |author2=Hibbert, Christopher |title=The London Encyclopaedia |edition=reprint |year=1992 |publisher=Macmillan |page=617|title-link=The London Encyclopaedia }}</ref>

===Portrayal on television=== Bulwer-Lytton was portrayed by the actor Brett Usher in the 1978 television serial ''Disraeli''.<ref>{{Citation|title=Disraeli: Portrait of a Romantic (TV Mini-Series 1978) - IMDb|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078601/|access-date=2021-02-08}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Telotte | first = Leigh Ehlers|title=Queen Victoria On Screen: film and television depictions from the silent era to today. |date=2020 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-1-4766-3878-2 |page=178 |oclc=1162842105}}</ref>

==Works==

===Novels=== {{Div col|colwidth=30em}} *''Falkland'' (1827)<ref name="Drabble2000pp147"/> [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7761 Available online] *''Pelham'' (1828)<ref name="Drabble2000pp147"/> [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7623 Available online] *''The Disowned'' (1829) [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7639 Available online] *''Devereux'' (1829) [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7630 Available online] *''Paul Clifford'' (1830) [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7735 Available online] *''Eugene Aram'' (1832) [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7614 Available online] *''Godolphin'' (1833) [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7756 Available online] *''Asmodeus at Large'' (1833) [https://archive.org/details/asmodeusatlarge01lyttgoog Available online] *''The Last Days of Pompeii'' (1834) [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1565 Available online] *''The Pilgrims of the Rhine'' (1834) [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8206 Available online] *''Rienzi'' (1835)<ref name="Drabble2000pp147"/> [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1396 Available online] *''The Student'' (1835) [https://archive.org/details/studentaseriesp01lyttgoog Available online] *''Ernest Maltravers; or The Eleusinia'' (1837) [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7649 Available online] *''Alice, or The Mysteries'' (1838), a sequel to ''Ernest Maltravers'' [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9774 Available online] *''Calderon, the Courtier'' (1838) [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9762 Available online] *''Leila; or, The Siege of Granada'' (1838) [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9761 Available online] *''Zicci: a Tale'' (1838) [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7608 Available online] *''Night and Morning'' (1841) [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9755 Available online] *''Zanoni'' (1842) [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2664 Available online] *''The Last of the Barons'' (1843) [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7727 Available online] *''Lucretia; or, The Children of Night'' (1846) [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7691 Available online] *''Harold: The Last of the Saxon Kings'' (1848)<ref name="Drabble2000pp147"/> [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7684 Available online] *''The Caxtons: A Family Picture'' (1849)<ref name="Drabble2000pp147"/> [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7605 Available online] *''My Novel, or Varieties in English Life'' (1853)<ref name="Drabble2000pp147"/> [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7714 Available online] *''The Haunted and the Haunters; or, The House and the Brain'' (novelette, 1859) [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14195 Available online] *''What Will He Do With It?'' (1858)<ref name="Drabble2000pp147"/> [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7671 Available online] *''A Strange Story'' (1861–1862) [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7701 Available online] *''The Coming Race'' (1871), republished as ''Vril: The Power of the Coming Race'' – [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1951 Available online] *''Kenelm Chillingly'' (1873) [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7658 Available online] *''The Parisians'' (1873)<ref name="Drabble2000pp147"/> [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7749 Available online] *''Pausanias, the Spartan'' – Unfinished (1873)

{{Div col end}}

===Verse=== *''Ismael'' (1820)<ref name="Drabble2000pp147"/> *''The Poems and Ballads of Schiller'', translator (1844), published by Bernard Tauchnitz, Leipzig *''The New Timon'' (1846), an attack on Tennyson published anonymously<ref name="Drabble2000pp147"/> *''King Arthur'' (1848–1849)<ref name="Drabble2000pp147"/>

===Plays=== {{Div col|colwidth=30em}} *''The Duchess de la Vallière'' (1837) *''The Lady of Lyons'' (1838)<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2461 |title=The Lady of Lyons; Or, Love and Pride |first=Edward Bulwer Lytton |last=Lytton |date=1 January 2001 |via=Project Gutenberg |access-date=2 October 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006084037/http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2461 |archive-date=6 October 2014 |url-status=live }}</ref> *''Richelieu'' (1839), adapted for the 1935 film ''Cardinal Richelieu'' *''Money'' (1840) *''Not So Bad as We Seem'' (1851) *''The Rightful Heir'' (1868), based on ''The Sea Captain'', an earlier play of Lytton's *''Walpole, or Every Man Has His Price'' (1869) *''Darnley'' (unfinished) {{Div col end}}

==See also== *Bulwer-Lytton and Theosophy *Lytton, Queensland

==References== {{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

==Further reading== *{{Cite book |last=Christensen |first=Allan Conrad |title=Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Fiction of New Regions |url=https://archive.org/details/edwardbulwerlytt0000chri |url-access=registration |year=1976 |publisher=The University of Georgia Press |location=Athens, Georgia |isbn=0820303879}} *{{Cite book |editor-last=Christensen|editor-first=Allan Conrad |title=The Subverting Vision of Bulwer Lytton: Bicentenary Reflections |year=2004 |publisher=The University of Delaware Press |location=Newark |isbn=0874138566}} *{{Cite book |last=Escott |first=T. H. S. |year=1910 |title=Edward Bulwer, First Baron Lytton of Knebworth; a Social, Personal, and Political Monograph |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.202032 |publisher=George Routledge & Sons |location=London }} *Lytton, The Earl of (1948). ''Bulwer-Lytton''. London: Home & Van Thal. (The English Novelists series) *{{Cite book |last=Mitchell |first=L. G |title=Bulwer Lytton: The Rise and Fall of a Victorian Man of Letters |url=https://archive.org/details/bulwerlyttonrise0000mitc |url-access=registration |year=2003 |publisher=Hambledon and London |location=London & New York |isbn=1852854235}} (Distributed in the United States and Canada by Palgrave Macmillan) * Snyder, Charles W. (1995). Liberty and Morality: A Political Biography of Edward Bulwer-Lytton. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. ISBN 0-8204-2471-4. *{{EB1911 |wstitle=Lytton, Edward George Earle Lytton, Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron |volume=17 |pages=185–186 |first=Arthur |last=Waugh |author-link=Arthur Waugh}} *Whittington-Egan, Molly (2013). ''Arthur O'Shaughnessy: Music Maker'' Bluecoat Press {{ISBN?}} *Ramm, John (2024), 'The Victorian Celebrity', Hertfordshire County Life, Summer issue 2024

==External links== {{Commons category|Edward Bulwer-Lytton}} {{Wikiquote|Edward Bulwer-Lytton}} {{wikisource|works=or}}

===Bulwer-Lytton ebooks=== * {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/edward-bulwer-lytton}} *{{Gutenberg author |id=761}} *{{Internet Archive author |sname=Edward Bulwer-Lytton}} *{{Librivox author |id=868}}

===Other links=== *{{Hansard-contribs |mr-edward-bulwer |Lord Lytton}} *[https://web.archive.org/web/20160112212315/http://lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/Bulwer-Lytton.html Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton (1803–73)] *[http://www.mith.demon.co.uk/Bulwer.htm John S. Moore's essay on Bulwer-Lytton] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070406193721/http://www.mith.demon.co.uk/Bulwer.htm |date=6 April 2007 }} *[http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/bulwer/bioov.html Edward Bulwer-Lytton biography and works] *[https://www.delphiclassics.com/shop/edward-bulwer-lytton/ Complete Works of Edward Bulwer-Lytton (Delphi Classics)]

{{s-start}} {{s-par|uk}} {{s-bef |before = William Pole-Tylney-Long-Wellesley |before2 = James Morrison }} {{s-ttl |title = Member of Parliament for St Ives |years = 1831–1832 |with = James Halse }} {{s-aft |after = James Halse}}

{{s-bef |before = Charles Sibthorp |before2 = George Heneage }} {{s-ttl |title = Member of Parliament for Lincoln |years = 18321841 |with = George Heneage to 1835 |with2 = Charles Sibthorp from 1835 }} {{s-aft |after = Charles Sibthorp |after2 = William Rickford Collett }} {{s-bef |before = Thomas Plumer Halsey |before2 = Sir Henry Meux, Bt |before3 = Hon. Thomas Brand }} {{s-ttl |title = Member of Parliament for Hertfordshire |years = 18521866 |with = Thomas Plumer Halsey to 1854 |with2 = Sir Henry Meux, Bt to 1859 |with3 = Abel Smith 1854–1857 |with4 = Christopher William Puller 1857–1864 |with5 = Abel Smith 1859–1865 |with6 = Henry Surtees from 1864 |with7 = Henry Cowper from 1865 }} {{s-aft |after = Henry Surtees |after2 = Henry Cowper |after3 = Abel Smith }}

{{s-off}} {{s-bef|before=Lord Stanley}} {{s-ttl|title=Secretary of State for the Colonies|years=1858–1859}} {{s-aft|after=The Duke of Newcastle}} {{s-aca}} {{s-bef|before=The Duke of Argyll}} {{s-ttl|title=Rector of the University of Glasgow|years=1856–1859}} {{s-aft|after=The Earl of Elgin}} {{s-reg|uk}} {{s-new|creation}} {{s-ttl|title=Baron Lytton|years=1866–1873}} {{s-aft|after=Robert Bulwer-Lytton}} {{s-reg|uk-bt}} {{s-new|creation}} {{s-ttl|title=Baronet|creation=of Knebworth|years=1838–1873}} {{s-aft|after=Robert Bulwer-Lytton}} {{s-end}}

{{Edward Bulwer-Lytton}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bulwer-Lytton, Edward}} Category:Edward Bulwer-Lytton Category:1803 births Category:1873 deaths Category:19th-century British dramatists and playwrights Category:19th-century English dramatists and playwrights Category:19th-century English novelists Category:19th-century English nobility Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Category:Alumni of Trinity Hall, Cambridge Category:Barons Lytton Category:British male novelists Category:Burials at Westminster Abbey Category:Conservative Party (UK) hereditary peers Category:Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Category:English historical novelists Category:English male dramatists and playwrights Category:English male novelists Category:English male poets Category:English occult writers Category:Literary peers Category:Freemasons of the United Grand Lodge of England Category:Hollow Earth proponents Edward Category:Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Hertfordshire Category:Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for St Ives Category:Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Category:People from Heydon, Norfolk Category:People from Knebworth Category:Politics of Lincoln, England Category:Rectors of the University of Glasgow Category:Secretaries of state for the colonies Category:UK MPs 1831–1832 Category:UK MPs 1832–1835 Category:UK MPs 1835–1837 Category:UK MPs 1837–1841 Category:UK MPs 1852–1857 Category:UK MPs 1857–1859 Category:UK MPs 1859–1865 Category:UK MPs 1865–1868 Lytton Category:Victorian novelists Category:Whig (British political party) MPs for English constituencies Category:Pre-Separation Queensland Category:Peers of the United Kingdom created by Queen Victoria Category:Writers of historical fiction set in the early modern period Category:Writers of Gothic fiction Category:English satirical novelists Category:Writers of historical fiction set in antiquity Category:Writers of historical fiction set in the Middle Ages Category:19th-century English poets Category:Victorian poets Category:Mythopoeic writers Category:Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George