Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton
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Standard Name: Lytton, Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton,,, first Baron
Birth Name: Edward George Earle Bulwer
Self-constructed Name: Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton
Titled: Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton
Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
, who began his prolific career as Edward Bulwer, wrote many kinds of novels—from the silver-fork genre (whose name derived from a derisive reference to Bulwer himself as a silver fork polisher
Mitchell, Sally, editor. Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia. Garland Press.
103
in Fraser's Magazine ) and domestic fiction to crime or Newgate
novels (the forerunner of sensation fiction), science fiction, and occult stories. He also wrote three plays, several books of poetry, and an Arthurian epic, as well as editing The New Monthly Magazine from 1831 to 1833.
Mitchell, Sally, editor. Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia. Garland Press.
Pastimes at The Hoo included fox-hunting and an annual race-meeting, but also private theatricals (like those of Bulwer-Lytton at nearby Knebworth), for which BBBD
both wrote and performed. She also joined with Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Friends, Associates
Barbarina Brand, Baroness Dacre
BBBD
's circle of friends at this period of her life, many of them entertained by herself and her husband at the Hoo but many whose relationship with her went back to long before her...
Textual Production
Matilda Betham-Edwards
Owen Meredith was the son of two writers: Rosina
and Edward Bulwer Lytton
. He was born in 1831, five years before his parents separated. He was about seven when his father removed him from...
Intertextuality and Influence
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
There are occasional moments of wit, as when destitution reveals that the family servants think terms of practical life rather than sentimental fiction: the old-fashioned type of servant, who appears so frequently in Morton
's...
Education
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Mary Elizabeth read early and voraciously, polishing off Anna Maria Hall
's three-volume Marian when she was only seven. By nine she was reading Scott
and Dickens
. One of the family servants introduced her...
Occupation
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
She played male parts in plays by Shakespeare
and others, not as burlesque, but as straight parts after the style of Charlotte Cushman
. At least one reviewer, in Coventry's Era, objected to...
Friends, Associates
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
MEB
shared a candid literary correspondence with Edward Bulwer-Lytton
from early in her career until his death in 1873. To him she confided many of her anxieties about writing and her thoughts on other writers...
Intertextuality and Influence
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
MEB
was encouraged to write from an early age, particularly by her mother. She would later recall how when she was eight and had just learned to write, her godfather bought her a beautiful brand...
Intertextuality and Influence
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
It was dedicated to novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton
with thanks for his literary advice.
Literary responses
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
His article, Sensation Novelists: Miss Braddon, which covered seven novels she had published since 1862, made a famous personal attack in asserting that her work evidenced familiarity with a very low type of female...
Intertextuality and Influence
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
MEB
hoped her friend and mentor Edward Bulwer-Lytton
would find her next novel an improvement over Lady Audley and Aurora Floyd, but noted that I fear I shall never write a genial novel. The...
Textual Features
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
MEB
sought here to follow Bulwer-Lytton
's advice to produce a story in which action flowed from character, rather than characters being merely marionettes, the slaves of the story.
Wolff, Robert Lee. Sensational Victorian. Garland.
159
Set in contemporary London and...
Textual Features
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
In a letter to Bulwer-Lytton
from this period, Braddon admits studying the inventive plotting of Frédéric Soulié
and borrowing from it.
Wolff, Robert Lee. Sensational Victorian. Garland.
128
This plot-driven sensation novel features a former valet, Joseph Wilmot, who, having taken...
Reception
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Informal and critical responses to The Doctor's Wife during its serialisation caused MEB
to revise the conclusion. She admitted to Bulwer-Lytton
in a letter dated 7 September 1864 that I am so apt to be...
Intertextuality and Influence
Charlotte Mary Brame
The novel is structured around recurrent references to two other texts: Longfellow
's The Courtship of Miles Standish, which is used to structure the debate between Phillipa and Arleigh over whether a woman may...
Timeline
21 June 1737: The Licensing Act received royal assent:...
Writing climate item
21 June 1737
The Licensing Act received royal assent: the number of legitimate theatres in London was set at two, and plays were subject to censorship by the Lord Chamberlain.
30 November 1824: A banker, Henry Fauntleroy, was hanged for...
Building item
30 November 1824
A banker, Henry Fauntleroy
, was hanged for forgery at Newgate Prison
in London, before a crowd of 100,000. The bank he had worked for was that of Anne Marsh
's husband's family.
1826: The English Gypsy, or Roma, population was...
National or international item
1826
The English Gypsy, or Roma, population was grouped by authorities with all nomadic or vagrant peoples, who were estimated by William Cobbett
to number around 30,000.
3 May 1834: William Harrison Ainsworth published his...
May 1837: Thomas Noon Talfourd, MP for Reading, author,...
Writing climate item
May 1837
Thomas Noon Talfourd
, MP for Reading, author, and friend of the literati, began his campaign to extend the length of copyright.
3 March 1838: The first issue of The Monthly Chronicle:...
Writing climate item
3 March 1838
The first issue of The Monthly Chronicle: A National Journal of Politics, Literature, Science, and Art was published.
22 August 1843: The Theatres Regulation Act made it legal...
Writing climate item
22 August 1843
The Theatres Regulation Act made it legal for any theatre to become licensed for drama (thus expanding its repertoire) and required all new commercial plays to be approved by the Lord Chamberlain seven days before...
2 September 1852: The Manchester Free Library, the first major...
Building item
2 September 1852
The Manchester Free Library
, the first major British public lending library, opened in Manchester.
October 1852: Mrs Maria Hayden brought the American practice...
Building item
October 1852
Mrs Maria Hayden
brought the American practice of spiritualism across the ocean to England, where she advertised as a medium.
By 14 April 1855: Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton published his...
Writing climate item
By 14 April 1855
Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton
published his first book of poetry, Clytemnestra, The Earl's Return, The Artist, and Other Poems, as Owen Meredith.
Texts
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton,. A Letter to a Late Cabinet Minister on the Current Crisis. Saunders and Ottley, 1834.
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton,. A Strange Story. S. Low, 1862.
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton,. Devereux. A tale. Henry Colburn, 1829.
Wolff, Robert Lee et al. “Devoted Disciple: The Letters of Mary Elizabeth Braddon to Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, 1862-1873”. Harvard Library Bulletin, Vol.
22
, pp. 1 - 35, 129.
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton, and Rosina Bulwer Lytton, Baroness Lytton. “Editorial Materials”. Letters of the Late Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton, to His Wife, edited by Louisa Devey, G. W. Dillingham, 1976.
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton,. Eugene Aram. H. Colburn and R. Bentley, 1832.
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton,. Falkland. H. Colburn, 1827.
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton,. Ismael, an oriental tale, with other poems, etc. J. Hatchard & Son, 1820.
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton, and Rosina Bulwer Lytton, Baroness Lytton. Letters of the Late Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton, to His Wife. W. Swan Sonnenschein, 1884.
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton,. Paul Clifford. H. Colburn and R. Bentley, 1830.
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton,. Paul Clifford. W. Scott, 1840.
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton,. Pelham. H. Colburn, 1828.
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton,. “Review of <span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘m’>Romance and Reality</span> by L.E.L”. The New Monthly Magazine, Vol.
32
, No. 132, pp. 545-51.
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton,. The Caxtons. W. Blackwood, 1849.
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton,. The Coming Race. W. Blackwood and Sons, 1871.
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton,. The Last Days of Pompeii. R. Bentley, 1834.
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton, and Sidney Hall. The Parisians. W. Blackwood and Sons, 1873.
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton,. Zanoni. Saunders and Otley, 1842.