The Pilgrims of the Rhine,
Last Days of
Pompeii,
Rienzi (1835), besides
England
and the English,
Athens its Rise and Fall,
and innumerable tales, essays, and articles in various
reviews and magazines, including the
New Monthly,
of which he became ed. in 1831. In the same year
he entered Parliament as a Liberal, but gradually
gravitated towards Conservatism, and held office in
the second government of Lord Derby as Colonial Sec.
1858-59. As a politician he devoted himself largely
to questions affecting authors, such as copyright
and the removal of taxes upon literature. He continued
his literary labours with almost unabated energy until
the end of his life, his works later than those already
mentioned including the
Last of the Barons
(1843),
Harold (1848), the famous triad of
The
Caxtons (1850),
My Novel (1853), and
What
will he do with it? (1859); and his studies in
the supernatural,
Zanoni (1842), and
A Strange
Story (1862). Later still were
The Coming
Race (1870) and
Kenelm Chillingly (1873).
To the drama he contributed three plays which still
enjoy popularity,
The Lady of Lyons,
Richelieu,
both (1838), and
Money (1840). In poetry
he was less successful.
The New Timon, a satire,
is the best remembered, largely, however, owing to
the reply by Tennyson which it brought down upon the
author, who had attacked him. In his works, numbering
over 60, L. showed an amazing versatility, both in
subject and treatment, but they have not, with perhaps
the exception of the Caxton series, kept their original
popularity. Their faults are artificiality, and
forced brilliancy, and as a rule they rather dazzle
by their cleverness than touch by their truth to nature.
L. was raised to the peerage in 1866.
Life, Letters, etc., of Lord Lytton by his
son, 2 vols., comes down to 1832 only. Political
Memoir prefaced to Speeches (2 vols., 1874).
LYTTON, EDWARD ROBERT BULWER, 1ST EARL OF LYTTON (1831-1891).—Poet
and statesman, s. of the above, was ed.
at Harrow and Bonn, and thereafter was private sec.
to his uncle, Sir H. Bulwer, afterwards Lord Dalling
and Bulwer (q.v.), at Washington and Florence.
Subsequently he held various diplomatic appointments
at other European capitals. In 1873 he succeeded
his f. in the title, and in 1876 became Viceroy
of India. He was cr. an Earl on his retirement
in 1880, and was in 1887 appointed Ambassador at Paris,
where he d. in 1891. He valued himself
much more as a poet than as a man of affairs; but,
though he had in a considerable degree some of the
qualities of a poet, he never quite succeeded in commanding
the recognition of either the public or the critics.
His writings, usually appearing under the pseudonym
of “Owen Meredith,” include Clytemnestra
(1855), The Wanderer (1857), Lucile (1860),
Chronicles and Characters (1868), Orval,
or the Fool of Time (1869), Fables in Song
(1874), and King Poppy (1892). As Viceroy
of India he introduced important reforms, and his
dispatches were remarkable for their fine literary
form.