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.
Through her youngest sister AS
met many key figures of the day, including Irish Home-Rule leader Charles Stewart Parnell
(Katherine O'Shea's long-term lover and eventual husband), and Justin McCarthy
, novelist and Irish Home-Rule MP...
Textual Features
Flora Tristan
One chapter, entitled English Women, criticizes British social systems, and details the consequences women suffer because of the indissolubility of marriage.
Tristan, Flora. Flora Tristan’s London Journal, 1840. Translators Palmer, Dennis and Giselle Pincetl, Charles River Books.
His fuller description (in a letter to his sister) was not so pleasant, something between Jeremy Bentham
and Meg Merrilies, very clever, but awfully revolutionary.
Disraeli, Benjamin. Lord Beaconsfield’s Correspondence With His Sister 1832-1852. John Murray.
15
Meg Merrilies was a fictitious gipsy in a poem...
Intertextuality and Influence
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
She took the title from a poem by Nora Perry
called Norine, and aimed to equal the success of Lucile (a drama by Edward Bulwer Lytton
which was later, after the appearance of Maurine...
Friends, Associates
Harriette Wilson
Back in England, HW
attempted to cultivate new friendships. She corresponded with Bulwer Lytton
in letters full of acute criticism of his writing, but never persuaded him to know her socially.