Bulwer-Lytton, Edward George Earle Lytton, first Baron Lytton

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward George Earle Lytton, first Baron Lytton (1803–73), Educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, he embarked on a career in politics as MP for St Ives in 1831; he was subsequently MP for Lincoln and in 1858–9 secretary for the colonies. He financed his extravagant life as a man of fashion by a versatile and prolific literary output, publishing either anonymously or under the name of Bulwer Lytton. His first success Pelham: or The Adventures of a Gentleman (1828), of the fashionable school, brought him considerable acclaim and established his reputation as a wit and dandy. His ‘Newgate’ novels were more in the ‘reforming’ manner of Godwin, e.g. Paul Clifford (1830), about a philanthropic highwayman, and Eugene Aram (1832), about a repentant murderer. He also wrote novels of domestic life; many popular historic novels, including The Last Days of Pompeii (1834), Rienzi, the Last of the Roman Tribunes (1835), and The Last of the Barons (1843); tales of the occult, including Zanoni (1842) and A Strange Story (1862); and a science fiction fantasy, The Coming Race (1871). Other novels include Falkland (1827), Godolphin (1833), Ernest Maltravers (1837), Harold, the Last of the Saxons (1848), Kenelm Chillingly (1873), and The Parisians (1873, unfinished). He was also editor of the New Monthly Magazine, 1831–3, and the author of three plays, The Lady of Lyons, or Love and Pride, a romantic comedy first performed in 1838; Richelieu, or the Conspiracy, a historical play in blank verse performed in 1839; and Money, a comedy performed in 1840, all of which have been successfully revived. He published several volumes of verse, including his earliest Byronic tale, Ismael (1820); The New Timon (1846), an anonymous satirical poem in which he attacked Tennyson as ‘School-Miss Alfred’, thus aggravating previous criticisms and stinging Tennyson into a bitter response in verse, mocking Lytton as a rouged and padded fop; and an epic, King Arthur (1848–9). Bulwer-Lytton made many enemies in his career but he nevertheless had powerful admirers, including Disraeli and Dickens. His works, though now little read, span many of the changes in 19th-cent. fiction and are thus of considerable social interest.