Esoteric Philosopher: Study of the Endless Path of Wisdom

Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. Lord Lytton.
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The Alice Leighton Cleather Basil Crump 1929 attack on Theosophy
Teaching planned by Hierarchy
No further messenger until 1975
Mother of the World
Dear Friends of Humanity and of the Ageless Wisdom
The original Sanskrit root of the Satanic races
Pre Adamic Satanic Races
The Golden Wheel Head Centre
Shigatse and Tda-shi-Hlumpo Monastery
The Forbidden City
Red Caps and Sect Worship
Five India's
The Lotus Sleep
Entrenched with Debt
Cosmic Etheric Vision and Septenary Clairvoyance
HPB: The Hierarchial Link
The Ocean of Reasoning: Tsong Khapa
The Essence of True Eloquence: Tsong khapa
A Golden Lotus Sutra
Three buddhic vestures, three human vehicles.
The Source Measure 43
Third sub plane of the Fifth manasic plane
Initiations and Atomic Matter
Telepathic/Etheric Transmission
Divine Light of the Cosmic Atom
Book of Imperfections
Magnetic power of Master
Formula of Creative Combinations
Golden Rays of the Sun
Radiation of the Master
Etheric plane vibrational frequencies
Cosmic Physical plane vibrational frequencies
Formula of Karmic Mass: Km = mdlc²
Differentiated Molecules
Light and Matter United
The 49/I/6 VIOLET/White/Red
Hiawatha: Line of the Red Ray
Zionist Movement: The seperating door
A stand against Soviet Communism
"the central triangle at the heart"
The Race for the Atom Bomb
The Zionist Question Today
Age Of Aquarius @ 1945
Failure to register adequate dynamic incentives
First Ray Magnetic Corruption
Sevenfold Intent to Destroy
Higher and Lower Ray expressions as used by the White and Black Lodges
The Black Master
The Horoscope, Invalid Upon Liberation
Fenian Dynamiters The Clan na Gael
The Fourth Fundamental of the Ageless Wisdom
The Dark Star, Carbonic Gas and the Global Atmosphere
The Jurassic Period and the Lords of the Flame
Manifestation, Withdrawal And Externalization Of Hierarchy
Significance of the year 1945
The Divine Avatars Maitreya Christ, Maitreya Buddha.
A "culture of respect."
Age Of Aquarius & The Years 1900, 1945, and 2035.
Ida, Pingala, and the Central Sushumna.
Fervid Gold And Gold Fever
Colonel H. S. Olcott And Abraham Lincoln
Colonel H. S. Olcott
The Red Rajputs And The Moryan Dynasty
Ozone And Climatic Conditions On Earth
Clouds the Atmosphere and Meteoric Dust
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
"Four Requirements" Refinement of the physical body is an Essential
The Freedom Of The Seven Solar Systems
Shining Face and Alkaid: A minor constellation. One of the Seven.
The Leading Great Rishi and Pleiad, Alkaid And Alcylone
The Law of Solar Union and The Cycle Of Sunship
Seven Rishis, Seven Timekeepers
The 'Sacred Triangle of all-inclusive Force'
Mars: Karttikeya. Agnibhu "fire born."
August Neptune: Arisen over the Horizon
Earth Base, reproduction of third un-named scheme.
Thomas Alva Edison
J.W. Keely, un-conscious Occultist. A "natural-born magician."
Keely, Edison and Tesla.
J.W. Keely and the Vril
Sedna and Xena
The Christ in the KH Letters
Earth Kundilini Base Scheme, Eventual Heart Triangle
Eire : Ireland
Tara And The Druids
Sisera and the Battle Of Megiddo
Root - Sub Races
Rays And Jewels
The Dark Ones
Cycles of Pralaya and the Rise to Sunship in future Kalpas
The Divine Circulatory Flow of the Cosmic Mother/Love
Obsession And Behavioural Problems
Vaisyas and Sudras shall tread the highest path
The School for Warriors
The School of Beneficent Magicians
The Schools of Aspiration and Painful Endeavor
Earth Mercury Anguish Aspiration
"mass intellectual wrong emphasis"
Magnetism, Radiation, Attraction and Repulsion
Austerity And Sternness
The Way of Resistance To Evil
Light or Darkness?
The Five Kumaras Of Manasic Energy
Four Kumaras: The Holy Four
The Ancient Of Days And William Blake
Plato: The Great Thinker
The Blood
Criminality: A Psychic Disease
Plague
Chaos
Labor: a battle with chaos
H.P.B. And The Battle Of Mentana
Fohat, Para-Fohat, Pan-Fohat!
Treason And The Traitor
Jesus/Joshua, Appollonius, Origen.
Bruce Lee: The Worrier Within. The Art of the Soul.
Opinion, from Latin opnr, to think.
Mars: Her Descher. The Red One.
Mt. Everest
The Year 1952
The Year 1936
Poles Of Light And Darkness
Zero Ray
Diamonds Are Forever
Respiration, Prana, Breath, Ozone:
"racial purity"
Intoxicants and Narcotics
The Chohan Hilarion: The Annunciator!
Infection
Influenza
Sandalwood
Henry Lewis Stimson
Cosmic Dust
Egypt, Chemi, Kham.
The United States: Banner Of Light Against Totalitarianism
John Law: Corrupt Scottish Financier
New Orleans: Seven Brothers of the Blood
Black Holes@Zero Points, Laya Centers and Gravitation
The Vitrified Forts of Scotland
7x7=49 degrees of the Negative pole and of the Positive pole.
Teachings on the Third Reich
Tamas and Teros
Arhat, Adept, Chohan.
Hatha Yoga
Port Said (bûr sacîd)
Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. Lord Lytton.
A Christian reflection On the New Age
T. Subba Rao
Hitlers Indian Army
Winston Churchill
Otto von Bismarck and the Realm of the Holy Roman Empire
William Q. Judge
Lord Ripon Governor-General Viceroy of India and Grand Master Mason
Venus, Light Bearer To Earth:
Great Britain/Prydian and Llyn-llion/Lyonness
Gaza Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
Benjamin Disraeli 'Beaconsfield' 1st Earl of
Telepathic Discourse and the Amanuensis
Napolean The Great
The Pancreas
The Spleen, Organ Of Solar Prana
Kashmere: Brahman Mahatma Of the Lunar Race.
The Roman Empire

Apollonius and Iamblichus held that it was not "in the knowledge of things without, but in the perfection of the soul within, that lies the empire of man, aspiring to be more than men." Bulwer-Lytton: "Zanoni." IU1 65.

Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. Lord Lytton:
 
ON the occasion of the commencement of Sir E. B. LYTTON'S new tale " A STRANGE STORY," we publish herewith a portrait of the famous novelist. He was born about 1806, in Herefordshire, England; his father was General Bulwer, a distinguished officer, who left a fortune to his son. Young Bulwer's first published work was a volume of verse, which fell dead. In 1827 he published his first novel, " Falkland," which had but slender success. But next year " Pelham" appeared, and at once established the rank of its author. The "Disowned," "Devereux," "Paul Clifford," "Eugene Aram," followed in rapid succession, and were all popular, We can not enumerate the long list of novels which this fertile author gave to the world between 1830 and 1845; all are still read, though they are far from comparing with the master-pieces which succeeded them. In 1845 Bulwer struck a new vein in the " Caxtons." This admirable work was open to none of the criticisms which had as-sailed its predecessors; it went home to the heart of every man, woman, and child, and endeared its author to the Christian world. It was followed in the same vein by "My Novel" and " What will he 10 with it ?" the latter of which was introduced to the American public in the pages of this journal.
 
Sir E. Bulwer Lytton is not only a novelist of the first rank; he has achieved remarkable success as a dramatist and as a politician. He held office under Lord Derby, and is one of the most distinguished orators in Parliament. His career shows that even wealth and high birth do not always stifle genius.
 
We subjoin the following extracts:
 
Who is there uniting in one person the imagination, the passion, the humor, the energy, the knowledge of the heart, the artist-like eye, the originality, the fancy, and the learning of Edward Lytton Bulwer? In a vivid wit—in profundity and a Gothic massiveness of thought in style in a calm certainty and definitiveness of purpose in industry and, above all, in the power of controlling End regulating by volition his illimitable faculties of mind, he is unequaled he is unapproached. - EDGAR A. POE.
 
To Bulwer, the author of "Pelham," "The Caxtons," and " My Novel," we assign the highest place among modern writers of fiction. There is always power in the creations of his fancy: he is always polished, witty, learned. Since the days of Scott were ended, there is, in our apprehension, no pinnacle so high as that on which we hang our wreath to Bulwer: like the Roman emperor, a prince among his equals, the first of his craft.”Blackwood's Mag. NEW YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST 10, 1861. http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/sir-edward-bulwer-lytton.htm
 
Sir E. Bulwer-Lytton, author of the initiatic novel Zanoni, received Eliphas Lévi into the Martinist and Rosicrucian Brotherhoods and conferring upon him the Baptism of Light, at the 1854 Spring Equinox, in London. The ordinand made a 21 days retreat and participated in his initiator's theurgical experiences, invoking Appolonius of Tyana. He received special teachings from him, which he transmitted in secret communications to his few disciples.
 
After his return, Eliphas will live in Paris for the remainder of his life. In a short period of time, he wrote six other books, attempting to transmit his spirital message. He assembled a small group of students, and adopted in his relations with them, the motto: "I don't teach, I awaken". He died on May 31, 1875. http://www.hermanubis.com.br/Artigos/EN/ARBRAlphonseCharlesConstant.htm
 
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (May 25, 1803 - January 18, 1873) was an English novelist, playwright, and politician.
 
He was the youngest son of General William Earle Bulwer of Heydon Hall and Wood Balling, and Elizabeth Barbara Lytton, daughter of Richard Warburton Lytton of Knebworth, Hertfordshire. He had two brothers, William (1799-1877) and Henry (1801-1872), afterwards Lord Dalling.
 
Life
Bulwer's father died when he was four years old, after which his mother moved to London. A delicate and neurotic, but precocious, child, he was sent to various boarding schools, where he was always discontented until a Mr Wallington at Baling encouraged him to publish, at the age of fifteen, an immature work, Ishmael and other Poems.
 
In 1822 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, but moved shortly afterwards to Trinity Hall, and in 1825 won the Chancellor's medal for English verse. In the following year he took his B.A. degree and printed for private circulation a small volume of poems, Weeds and Wild Flowers. He purchased a commission in the army, but sold it again without serving, and in August 1827 married, in opposition to his mother's wishes, Rosina Doyle Wheeler (1802-1882). Upon their marriage, Bulwer's mother withdrew his allowance, and he was forced to set to work seriously.
 
His writing and his efforts in the political arena took a toll upon his marriage to Rosina, and they were legally separated in 1836. Three years later, she published a novel called Cizeveley, or the Man of Honour, in which Bulwer was bitterly caricatured. In June 1858, when her husband was standing as parliamentary candidate for Hertfordshire, she appeared at the hustings and indignantly denounced him. She was consequently placed under restraint as insane, but liberated a few weeks later. This was chronicled in her book A Blighted Life. For years she continued her attacks upon her husband's character; she would outlive him by nine years.
 
Political career
Bulwer began his career as a follower of Jeremy Bentham. In 1831 he was elected member for St Ives in Huntingdon, 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 leading part in securing the reduction, after vainly essaying the repeal, of the newspaper stamp duties.
 
His influence was perhaps most keenly felt when, on the Whigs' dismissal from office in 1834, he issued a pamphlet entitled A Letter to a Late Cabinet Minister on the Crisis. Lord Melbourne, then Prime Minister, offered him a lordship of the admiralty, which he declined as likely to interfere with his activity as an author.
 
In 1838 Bulwer, then at the height of his popularity, was created a baronet, and on succeeding to the Knebworth estate in 1843 added Lytton to his surname, under the terms of his mother's will. In 1845, he left Parliament and spent some years in continental travel, reentering the political field in 1852; this time, having differed from the policy of Lord John Russell over the Corn Laws, he stood for Hertfordshire as a Conservative. Bulwer held that seat till 1866, when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Lytton of Knebworth.
 
In 1858 he was appointed secretary for the colonies. In the House of Lords he was comparatively inactive. Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton (June 5, 1858 - June 11, 1859)
 
The Secretary of State for the Colonies or Colonial Secretary was the British Cabinet official in charge of managing the various British colonies. The position was first created in 1768 to deal with the increasingly troublesome North American colonies.
 
Literary career
In 1828 he attracted general attention with Pelham, an intimate study of the dandyism of the age that kept gossips busy in identifying the characters of the romance with the leading men of the time. By 1833, he had reached the height of his popularity with Godolphin, followed by The Pilgrims of the Rhine (1834), The Last Days of Pompeii (1834), Rienzi (1835), Last of the Saxon Kings (1848), and others. Though prolific, Bulwer tended to be perhaps overly colorful in his writing; today, his name lives on in the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, in which contestants have to supply the openings of terrible (imaginary) novels, inspired by his novel Paul Clifford, which opens with the famous words,
 
"It was a dark and stormy night"
or to give the sentence in its full glory:
 
"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."
The shorter form of the opening sentence was popularized by the Peanuts comic strip. Snoopy's sessions with the typewriter usually began with it. Entrants in the contest seek to capture the rapid changes in point of view, the florid language, and the atmosphere of the full sentence.
 
In The Last Days of Pompeii, Bulwer-Lytton used the phrases "the pen is mightier than the sword," "the great unwashed," and "the almighty dollar."
 
In 1831 he undertook the editorship of the New Monthly, but resigned in 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 Blackwoods Magazine at the time of his death in 1873. http://www.searchspaniel.com/index.php/Edward_Bulwer-Lytton,_1st_Baron_Lytton
 

No author in the world of literature ever gave a more truthful or more poetical description of these
beings than Sir E. Bulwer-Lytton, the author of Zanoni. IU1 286.
 
It is the vril of Bulwer Lytton's "Coming Race," and of the coming races of our mankind. The name vril may be a fiction; the Force itself is a fact doubted as little in India as the existence itself of their Rishis, since it is mentioned in all the secret works. SD1 563.
 
How much has Bulwer Lytton known of this mystic fact when describing, in one of his highest inspirational moods, Zanoni face to face with his Augoeides? SD1 573.
 
Augoeides – (Gr.). Bulwer Lytton calls it the "Luminous Self", or our Higher Ego. AY Gloss.
 
This is the secret of the old-world magicians, who made Nature serve them and work miracles every
day for their convenience. This is the secret of the coming race which Lord Lytton foreshadowed
for us. Through Gates of Gold. M Collins. 1887.
 
It is from an old fragment that was translated to him, that the late Lord Bulwer Lytton got his idea of Vril. SD3 107.
 
"The theurgic or benevolent magic, the Goetic, or dark and evil necromancy, were alike in preeminent repute during the first century of the Christian era."*  But never have any of the highly moral and pious philosophers, whose fame has descended to us spotless of any evil deed, practiced any other kind of magic than the theurgic, or benevolent, as Bulwer-Lytton terms it. IU xliii. *Bulwer-Lytton: "Last Days of Pompeii," p. 147.
 
The antediluvian children -- who perhaps played with it, using it as the boys in Bulwer-Lytton's Coming Race, use the tremendous "vril" -- called it the "Water of Phtha." IU1 64.
 
Apollonius and Iamblichus held that it was not "in the knowledge of things without, but in the perfection of the soul within, that lies the empire of man, aspiring to be more than men." Bulwer-Lytton: "Zanoni." IU1 65.
 
Sir E. Bulwer-Lytton, in his Coming Race, describes it as the VRIL,** used by the subterranean populations, and allowed his readers to take it. ** We apprehend that the noble author coined his curious names by contracting words in classical languages. Gy would come from gune; vril from virile. IU1 125.
 
Moses was determined to exterminate all those who, sensitive to its influence, allowed themselves to fall under the easy control of the vicious beings which move in the astral waves like fish in the water; beings who surround us, and whom Bulwer-Lytton calls in Zanoni "the dwellers of the threshold. IU1 178.
 
There are the world of Maya, the world of glamor and the world of illusion. There is also that mysterious "Dweller on the Threshold" to which Bulwer Lytton refers in Zanoni. All of these four Christ met and vanquished in the desert-experience. BC 118.
 
Sir Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873): A Chronology of His Life and Works
Philip V. Allingham, Contributing Editor, Victorian Web; Faculty of Education, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario.
 
1803  Born 25 May at 31 Baker Street, London, youngest of three sons of General William Earle Bulwer (1757-1807) of Heydon Hall in Norfolk and Elizabeth Barbara Lytton (1773-1843), heiress of the Robinson and Lytton families of Knebworth in Herfordshire.
1804  Mrs. Bulwer obtains legal guardianship of her children through the Court of Chancery; her husband appoints her estranged husband military commander of Lancashire.
1807  7 July: Death of his father, General William Earle Bulwer, who, having arranged for the defence of Lancashire against possible French invasion, had anticipated being elevated to the peerage.
1812  Attends Dr. Ruddock's school in Fulham; as a result of ill treatment, he is transferred to Dr. Hooker's school at Rottingdean.
1819-1821  Studies Latin, Greek, history, and rhetoric under Rev. Charles Wallington at Ealing in preparation for attending Cambridge. His platonic love affair with Lucy D is cut short by her family's marrying her off, sending him into a Byronic melancholy.
1820  London firm of J. Hatchard and Son publishes the Byronic Ismael: An Oriental Tale, with Other Poems, for which BL received acknowledgement from Sir Walter Scott.
1821  Works on his mathematics skills with Oxford tutor Thomson. 
1822  Enters Trinity College, Cambridge, during the Easter term ; subsequently transferred to Trinity Hall as a fellow-commoner, thereby being excused from attending lectures. Through the Union Debating Society he becomes acquainted with the university's leading undergraduates, including Thomas Babington Macaulay.
1823  Delmour; or, A Tale of a Sylphid, and Other Poems
1824-1826  Travels in England and abroad, making a pilgrimage to the grave of Lucy D in Ullswater. He also visited Robert Owen's model factory. At Brocket Park near Knebworth becomes infatuated with Byron's ex-mistress, the mercurial Lady Caroline Lamb.
1825  July, wins the Chancellor's medal for his poem "Sculpture." The poem is attacked by Fraser's Magazine. Bulwer-Lytton publishes the early novel Rupert de Lindsay
1826  Weeds and Wildflowers published. Bulwer-Lytton takes his BA, then travels to Paris, the Faubourg St. Germain, and Versailles, returning to London in April.
1827  On 30 August, at St. James's Church in London, BL married Irish wit and free-thinker Rosina Doyle Wheeler, niece of General Sir John Doyle and prot´g´e of Lady Caroline Lamb, much to his mother's disapproval. BL publishes the gloomy Byronic romance Falkland.
1828  June: Bulwer-Lytton publishes the witty, anti-ByronicPelham, a 'silver fork' novel about fashionable life. December:The Disowned based on BL's youthful excursions with the Gypsies near his home and his brief adventures in France.
1829  June: BL attempts the genre of the historical novel with Devereux, set in the reign of Queen Anne.
1830  August: BL publishes his first 'Newgate' (crime) novel, Paul Clifford , a novel with a purpose: the reform of the British judicial system.
1831-1832  BL publishes the long, satirical poem The Siamese Twins and an edition of Collected Poems . BL becomes editor of the New Monthly Magazine.
1831-1841  As reforming Liberal Member of Parliament for St. Ives and Lincoln, BL is instrumental in the passage of the First Reform Bill of 1832, and helps prevent a Tory return to power through the publication of the pamphlet Letter to a Late Cabinet Minister on the Present Crisis (1834). 
1832  PublishesEugene Aram, a psychological crime thriller; the controversial aspect of the story is that the protagonist is a murderer. 
1833  Anticipates his later occult thrillers with Godolphin , a novel of fashionable life. He also publishes the two-volume History of England , about his nation during and after the Napoleonic Wars. Breakdown of health, journey to Italy, and first separation from his wife. 
1834  The Last Days of Pompeii BL meets noted actor-manager W. C. Macready. 
1835  Receives an MA from Cambridge, and publishes Rienzi, a novel about mediaeval Italy.
1836  Final separation from his wife. The Duchess de la Valliere .
1837  4 January: Macready stages The Duchess de la Valliere , a Three Musketeers-like drama concerning a young courtier in the days of Louis XIV and her tragic love for a soldier, but the play holds the stage only seven nights. publishes a two-volume classical history Athens, Its Rise and Fall and another novel of fashionable life, Ernest Maltravers .
1838  Sequel to Ernest Maltravers, Alice, a bildungsroman; and two mediaeval Spanish-set potboilers, Leila; or, The Siege of Granada and Calderon the Courtier. Bulwer-Lytton wins parliamentary abolition of the last vestige of West Indian slavery ("apprenticeship"). He writes the highly successful drama The Lady of Lyons, which Macready stages from 15 February at Covent Garden.
1839  William Macready stages Bulwer-Lytton's Richelieu a five-act play in blank verse, from 7 March to public acclaim. Encouraged by its success, Bulwer-Lytton writes another historical five-act drama, The Sea Captain; or, The Birthright , which ran for several weeks at the Haymarket Theatre in October, but popular reception is mixed, and W. M. Thackeray satirizes the play with ruthless brilliance in The Yellow Plush Papers. 
1840  8 December: The pre-Wildean comedy Money at the Haymarket wins wide acceptance among London theatre audiences, running until May, 1841; this drawing-room comedy would be revived throughout the century.
1841  Retires from Parliament. Publishes the novel Night and Morning
1842  Zanoni.
1843  Parliament finally passes the Theatre Regulation Act ("Bulwer's Bill") granting status to minor theatres but extending the licensing power of the Lord Chamberlain. The Last of the Barons. Mother's death; following the terms of her will, he hyphenated his name to the patrician-sounding "Bulwer-Lytton."
1846  Lucretia; or, The Children of the Night 
1847  Defends his crime fiction against public criticism in A Word to the Public.
1848  The historical novel Harold, set at the time of the Norman Conquest, embodies Bulwer-Lytton's theory about certain leaders' being successful because they exemplify the Spirit of the Age. His beloved daughter Emily dies of typhus in London; Bulwer-Lytton is stricken with grief.
1849  The Caxtons: A Family Picture runs serially in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine from April, 1848, through October, 1849, prior to volume publication.
1850  My Novel, by Pisistratus Caxton; or, Varieties in English Life runs serially in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine from Sept., 1850, through January, 1853, prior to volume publication.
1851  Dickens and his amateur perform Bulwer-Lytton's especially-written Not So Bad as We Seem for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert on May 7 as BL's contribution to The Guild of Literature and Art, a pension scheme he and Dickens have created; Bulwer-Lytton joins the Conservative party.
1852-1866  Returns to Parliament as Conservative member for Hertford.
1857  The story "The Haunted and The Haunters" appears in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in August.
1853  My Novel published by Blackwood and Son. 
1858  Charles Dickens supplies Bulwer-Lytton with the title What Will He Do with It? by Pisistratus Caxton, which runs serially in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine from June, 1857, through January 1859, prior to volume publication.
1858-1859  As Secretary of State for the Colonies in Lord Derby's conservative administration, Bulwer-Lytton names the new Pacific crown colony where gold has been discovered "New Caledonia."
1862  The (anonymous) novelA Strange Story runs weekly in Dickens's journal All the Year Round from 10 August, 18621, to 8 March, 1862. Bulwer-Lytton turns down the throne of Greece left vacant by the abdication of King Otho.
1863  Caxtoniana .
1864  Cambridge honours a lifetime's contributions to literature with the degree of LLD.
1866  Raised to the peerage as Baron Lytton -- henceforward, he is known as "Bulwer-Lytton." Volume of verse The Lost Tales of Miletus published by Blackwood.
1869  The historical play Walpole; Bulwer-Lytton's metrical translation of The Odes and Epodes of Horace published.
1870  On 15 January, receives the order of St. Michael and St. George.
1871  The novel The Coming Race is published by Blackwood in a single volume.
1872  The novel The Parisians runs serially in Blackwood's from October, 1872, through January, 1874.
1873  Kenelm Chillingly: His Adventures and Opinions published in three volumes by William Blackwood. 18 January, Bulwer-Lytton dies at Torquay. The Parisians published in four volumes by William Blackwood.
1876  Pausanias the Spartan published posthumously through the efforts of his son, Robert, and Bulwer-Lytton's old college friend, Benjamin Hall Kennedy from BL's notes.
1882  Bulwer-Lytton's last historical drama Darnley staged.
 
Bulwer-Lytton
by John S Moore.
Visit Knebworth, ancestral home of the Lytton family, and before the first Baron’s writing desk the guide informs you that although he was a very famous novelist in his day nobody reads him any more. This is not much of an exaggeration. The last of his books to be popular was The Last Days of Pompeii, a cruder work than his best historical novels, though credited with inspiring Madame Blavatsky to her adventurous career as mystical hierophant and founder of the theosophical society. But it would be wrong to conclude from the fact that he is not read to the judgement that he is not worth reading. Why has this idea taken hold?
 
Born Edward Bulwer in 1803, he was educated at Trinity College Cambridge. He began writing to finance an extravagant lifestyle as man of fashion. He was Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1858. For his achievements as novelist, playwright and statesman, he was elevated to the peerage in 1866. For forty years he was known as Bulwer, for twenty-two, having added his mother's surname on inheriting Knebworth, Bulwer-Lytton, and the last seven as Lord Lytton. He died in 1873.
 
Lytton’s work expresses some of the most significant intellectual currents of the nineteenth century, several of which are far from are exhausted. He treated intelligently and interestingly perennial themes of good and evil, of freedom and despotism, egoism and altruism, life affirmation and the power of will. His treatment can seem all the fresher partly because he is no longer familiar. His influence was world-wide. It was notable in Germany, whose deep and thoughtful culture he both affected and was affected by. He was influenced by Schiller (whom he translated), and by Goethe, sharing something of the latter's eclectic liveliness, and exploring subjects that strongly suggest his speculations about the daemonic. His novel of thirteenth century Italy, Rienzi, inspired Wagner's third opera.
 
Britain and Germany have often seemed far apart culturally, looking to different types of philosophy, and separated by a degree of mutual contempt. British writers deplore Germany's tendency to obscurity and dangerously misguided enthusiasm, Germans British pedestrianism of ideas and arrogant insularity. To some continental critics, the stranglehold of the old universities has adversely affected the whole of English cultural life. Such criticism was by no means unechoed in Britain.. Some of Bulwer's thoughts upon power and charisma suggest a discontent that a complacent English culture has often felt able to dismiss as typical of an alien tradition.
 
Coleridge and Carlyle are examples of that enthusiasm for Germany that was a significant strand in nineteenth century British culture. Many in Victorian times had ideas of Germany as a kind of alternative England, a place of new possibilities, romantically rich, a new country to be constructed. We may think of the creation of an original German culture as an international project, with a not altogether happy outcome. Viewing Bulwer as part of this is to guard against thinking solely in terms of English literature. For the German connection see ZIPSER Richard A., Edward Bulwer-Lytton and Germany,: Berne & Frankfurt/M.: Herbert Lang, 1974.
 
Allan Conrad Christensen, author of one modern study (Edward Bulwer-Lytton, the fiction of new regions, Athens, GA University of Georgia Press 1976), asserts that Lytton was 'not one of the very great novelists' and that he is interesting for his ideals and aspirations more than for the perfection of his work. He says that he throws valuable light on the thought of the Victorians, on their view of the world. Though he also argues for his intrinsic interest, many might think that Bulwer is mostly of concern to historians, and students of the Victorian age, and that for literature we should read other novelists. That he was original and influential no one would deny. Others have surpassed him in some, perhaps most, of the genres in which he worked. Vanity Fair has been called the masterpiece of the fashionable, Oliver Twist of the Newgate school. Some conclude that his influence has passed on, into other and greater writers, with the implicit suggestion that he has nothing to say to us. This is very disputable, certainly in view of much of the nineteenth literature that still continues to be read. Many of the ideas expressed are as lively and relevant today as they were when he wrote.
 
As for Bulwer's deficiency in purely literary qualities, that is less decisive than some critics have held. Understanding something of what his ideas are, we no longer judge him by some simplistic canon of what is or is not ‘great literature’. Supposed weaknesses of style like his unfashionable archaism, need not obstruct appreciation. Admittedly he has acquired an unfortunate reputation for corniness. The opening lines of his Paul Clifford (1830) have inspired a number of childish jokes, largely through the influence of Schultz’s Peanuts strip cartoon. The sentence runs: - "It was a dark and stormy night and 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." This is supposed to be so laughable that someone is offering an annual ‘Bulwer-Lytton prize’ for bad writing.
 
Another obvious obstacle is the sheer diversity and range of his work. No one is likely to be drawn to all of it. I only feel qualified to argue for the interest of some of it, and to indicate a few of his more notable themes. Far from being superseded, his best work is unique in English literature, of permanent interest, and quite unfairly ignored. It would be surprising if someone who made so many successful hits never attained to lasting originality Admittedly the idea of having to plough through his whole oeuvre would be dismaying. I am prepared to concede that a work like Ernest Maltravers (1837)* may well be dead for the rest of time, though I would not want to pontificate on the subject. Who could say where a Lytton revival might lead?
 
We can certainly see him as a representative Victorian, with his roots appropriately in an earlier era. He was a survivor from the days of George IV. His first poetry was published in 1820, his first novel in 1827. All his life he cultivated a dandy image which came to seem worse than old fashioned. It inspired counter accusations of effeminacy from Tennyson, whom he had himself accused of girlishness. This inspired a lifelong feud.
 
The young Bulwer, who began as an admirer of Byron, found a new hero in Bentham, entering parliament in the reform interest in 1831. At this period he wrote of the need to balance the urge to self fulfilment with more social concerns. His Pelham (1828) allegedly changed the fashion from Byronism to the moral earnestness of the Victorian social reformers. For amoral individualism, the Byronism of the 1820s had prefigured the Nietzscheanism of the end of the century. After the 1820s people tired of egoistic assertion for a season, much as, following a similar reaction, was to happen with Nietzsche. Bulwer found fertile material in the dialectic of egoism and idealism. The tension between the two suggests what Aleister Crowley, the prophet of Magick and thelema, and admirer of Lytton’s work, said of the conflict between his own Beast personality and his utopian, Shelleyan side, though in his case it might all reduce to egoism. He remarks on Zanoni’s sacrifice in language that time has not softened into respectability.
 
"We have a sentimental idea of self sacrifice, the kind which is most esteemed by the vulgar and is the essence of popular Christianity. It is the sacrifice of the strong to the weak. This is wholly against the principles of evolution. Any nation which does this systematically on a sufficiently large scale destroys itself. The sacrifice is vain, the weak are not even saved. Consider the action of Zanoni in going to the scaffold in order to save his silly wife. The gesture was magnificent; it was evidence of his own supreme courage and moral strength; but if every one acted on that principle the race would deteriorate and disappear".
 
With the reaction against rationalism and a new cultural climate, Bulwer’s lifelong occult interests gained a new relevance. He was a living link between the original Romantic Movement, and the belief in the power of the imagination that characterised the aesthetic revolt. His conception of the ideal world and the soul prefigured the principles of the symbolists and decadents who made up romanticism's second wind. The symbolist movement was largely underpinned by occult philosophy. Mystery was intrinsic to the reaction against the supposed rationality of the high Victorians. Bulwer had a rich and genuine occult learning that earned him the respect of all the leading figures of the occult revival. He had made an intensive study of magical writers like Iamblichus, Psellus, and Cornelius Agrippa, and was not above claiming secret knowledge and initiation into the Rosicrucian brotherhood.
 
The concern with egoism led to a preoccupation with villainy. In defence of the subject matter of his Newgate novels, Bulwer argued that crime reveals deep truth about human nature. This was another of his seminal ideas. Arbaces the magician in The Last Days of Pompeii (1834), last descendant of the Egyptian royal line, is a gloomy, sensual aristocratic criminal. The theme was more deeply explored in his occult stories. In The Haunted and the Haunters† (1857), he presents a malevolent character who transcends the Byronic to create a fascinating image of daemonic will. In the full version of the story, he is encountered in his contemporary embodiment as Richards, the mysterious long-lived being responsible for the hauntings. Sometimes described as the best ghost story ever written, this is arguably his masterpiece. He cut it short in later editions, because he wanted to develop the theme into a full-length novel. It became A Strange Story (1862), where the same malignant will is personified as Margrave, an evil character who wants to live forever. This desire comes across as a powerful image of life affirmation, though in the form of black magic.
 
White magic is portrayed in the earlier Zanoni (1842). Zanoni stands for the virtuous version of daemonic will. He has lived for many centuries as a member of a wise circle of initiates who have discovered the secret of eternal life. Taking another's place on the scaffold, during the Reign of Terror, he offered the pattern for Sidney Carton’s sacrifice in Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. Lytton stated that this novel represents the fullest expression of his thought. We can think of it as a Rosicrucian novel of ideas. It brought to a nineteenth century audience the timelessly fascinating Rosicrucian alchemical tradition. The character of Zanoni represents his synthesis of these ideals. For its treatment of these, it belongs with his historical novels.
 
Late in his career, Bulwer turned against the pretensions of scientific rationalism, expressing hostility towards Marxism, Darwinism and socialist utopias. Other of his contemporaries expressed comparable reservations, not least Tennyson, whose Locksley Hall Sixty Years After shows his discontent with the ideals of progress he had done so much to hymn.The Coming Race (1873) has sometimes been interpreted as one of the earliest blasts in a dystopic tradition that was to culminate in Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World, books which for a few decades offered powerful prophylactics against some disturbing modern tendencies.
 
How much his thoughts on will derived from philosophical sources like Schopenhauer, if at all, and how much from humbler sources like Balzac, has been a subject of argument.
 
Whatever his inspiration there are fertile possibilities in the subject. The Coming Race explores some of them in the form of science fiction. Vril is will power made into the direct energy source of society. (The word survives on the supermarket shelf as Bovril). Like Huxley's Brave New World, the novel included speculations about interesting technological developments, but set in the framework of an inhuman and unacceptable future. The scientific perfection of this society is that of another species, and really intolerable to the human being.
 
High claims have been made for this book, and even for the idea of vril, which has been described as anticipating nuclear energy. As science fiction it long predated Wells who was impressed by it,
 
His idea of historical romance is outlined in his introduction to Harold, or the Last of the Saxon Kings (1848), serious history mixed with romance. This offers a natural framework for such themes as the perils of a political career, and the meaning of aristocracy, subjects unfortunately prone to easy trivialisation. The historical novel itself is a genre that has sometimes been degraded to the level of feminine emotional pornography. With the debased romanticism of 'romantic fiction' the aristocratic ideal becomes little more than a form of titillation for female readers. So the seriousness and originality of Bulwer's treatment may be overlooked. The eras he writes about he chooses not just for their dramatic interest. At his best he was writing historical novels of ideas. The Last Days of Pompeii, for all its merits, has presumably had its day. Brilliant entertainment for its time, its concessions to popular sentiment give an inadequate image of his powers. Modern readers who want that sort of thing seem to prefer Robert Graves’s evocations of the Roman Empire in his Claudius series. Pompeii gives some intriguing insights into the Victorian imagination. But the interest of Rienzi (1835), and The Last of the Barons (1843) goes much further. In these novels, important universal issues are treated, unresolved arguments aired.
 
Bulwer teaches a history that deserves to be better known, bringing it imaginatively alive, and revealing a lot about nineteenth century British attitudes towards it. Rienzi expresses something of his social radicalism. It anticipates the intellectual atmosphere that generated fascism in its engrossing concern with charisma, the nature of political leadership, nationalism and ambition. He says that the Roman people rejected Rienzi’s leadership because they were not worthy of him. He holds that it was the same with the English who rejected Cromwell’s republic. His description of Charles II, as "the lewd pensioner of Louis", reveals something of his political position. The aristocratic families of the Orsini and the Colonna come across as negative and destructive forces, though their point of view is by no means presented without sympathy.
 
The Last of the Barons was his next novel after Zanoni. Most critics acknowledge it to be one of his best. Perhaps we can trace a link with the heroic theme of its predecessor. Much as Zanoni is a hero held up for our admiration, it could be argued that Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, known as the Kingmaker, represents his ideal in a more earthly form. This is nobility benevolent and not simply Byronic. He based his writing on a thorough study of contemporary sources, including the chroniclers like Hall that Shakespeare read for his tetralogy on the Wars of the Roses. This epoch was England at its most self absorbed, the time when English literature retreated north of the border and perpendicular architecture developed in virtual isolation from continental influences. Perhaps such history is not of world-wide interest; its concerns reflect deep into the essence of English nationhood. Bulwer has an intriguing thesis that Warwick the Kingmaker had a better vision of England than did Edward IV and his Tudor successors. It cannot be said that the thesis obtrudes. We are hardly aware of it till the end of the book. Viewpoints of other, often opposed, characters are treated very sympathetically. The novel may even at first seem to be about the rise of the new middle classes, with heroes like Nicholas Alwyn, the ambitious goldsmith, and Master Warner, the inventor, who looks back to Friar Bacon and forward to the industrial revolution. Warwick is far from a mere apologist for the power of exploiters. Far more than the old order, he represents England in all its contradictions. Considerations of policy are always tempered by a deep sense of traditional liberties. The value of aristocracy becomes apparent where liberty is overridden in the name of reform.
 
In this feudal vision is a wonderful lost cause to compare with Jacobitism. As a lost cause it could even have more appeal than that of the Stuarts, who might be perceived as primarily a Scottish dynasty. Bulwer links it with his own pride of ancestry; one of his own ancestors is periodically mentioned throughout the book as fighting on the Lancastrian side. The value of lost causes has often been understood as far more than that of doomed classes or misfit individuals. Even in their failure they are somehow liberating, a challenge to the idea that justice lies with the victors. The eighteenth Whig settlement with its all embracing claim to represent freedom and reason was confronted by an alternative. The defeated cause, especially after 1745, inspired the most romantic emotions, as captured in Lady Nairne's beautiful songs. This book does something the same for the equally well known Tudor settlement.
 
In the very notion of the lost cause there is a world of emotional possibilities to enrich the present. A settlement that is found oppressive may be countered by this spirit. We live in a world in which a number of cultures and countries have recently experienced defeat. In a demoralised culture, it is important to find some compensation for defeat. Factors such as material wealth and erotic enjoyment generally offer consolation. What is most oppressive is that we are told that what we experience as defeat is not defeat, that it is really a triumph we are simply too backward to understand. We are under pressure to think what the dominant group in society means us to think, confounding power with wisdom. Despite the occasional encouragement when dissenting points of view find their way into the newspapers, it is hard for such attitudes to sustain themselves. Bombarded with orthodox propaganda, it is hard to reject what we feel we ought to reject. How can we resist the idea that we live among reasonable people worthy of respect?
 
That other values than those in authority live and flourish within our society goes without saying, but typically their official status is low, and they are derided as outmoded, or unenlightened. Those who live by them are under pressure to change. Theirs is denied to be a perspective from which much develops. Against this tyranny art can operate as a subversive force. As a way of memory and of crystallisation, it opens the gate to enjoyment that is otherwise barred. Artists and writers create separate worlds where it is possible to ignore the pressure of outside opinion. The Last of the Barons is such a work. As a novel of a lost cause, preserving as literature Warwick's vision of aristocracy based on popular affection, lies much of its aesthetic value. In this sense we can see the book as successful and satisfying, the creation of a self contained other world where ideas and values do not keep changing into one another.
 
Even as a historical novelist Bulwer-Lytton is universally held to be inferior to such masters as Hugo, Dickens and Scott, presumably as regards character, psychological drama, and other pure literary qualities. But he has a different sort of interest. He participates in the intellectual climate in a different way. He was writing a different sort of novel, whose interest is largely in its ideas. I strongly deny that his books have lost their relevance. They maintain interesting historical theses. It is recognised that the Last of the Barons is more historically accurate than Scott’s novels, certainly than his English ones. Bulwer's historical research was deep and thorough. But even Scott is little read now.
 
One thesis is that the mediaeval barons were the foundation of English liberty. Even by Warwick's day, as Bulwer points out, they were still half Norman. He puts forward an argument for the value of feudalism, contending that English liberty grew out of the feudal past, the Norman freedom of the barons, their history and traditions. These values were to lay dormant for 150 years to re-emerge in the Cromwellian republic. This view is an alternative to the Saxonism that is emphasised in Harold, and sits more easily with the cosmopolitanism of the post war era. Feudalism involves voluntary commitment to rightful authority. Against this was the new monarchical absolutism with its basis in Machiavelli, appealing to the thrusting new middle class, and promoted by Edward IV, Richard III and the Tudors. Bulwer presents the young Duke of Gloucester, the future Richard III, as a serious student of these new ideas. Not only is he intelligent, ruthless and brave, as Shakespeare portrays him, but also a more sympathetic character, in his own way an idealist rather than a mere villain.
 
Machiavelli represents rationalisation. We may think of him as a revolutionary, the Marx or Lenin of his day. One dispenses with morality for the duration of the revolution; after that it is presumably to return. Machiavellianism means cynicism about power and about the immovable beliefs of the people, to which hypocrisy has to be paid as tribute. Some basic questions of political philosophy present themselves. How much can a society be based upon true beliefs? There is a dialogue with Shakespeare, especially on the character of Gloucester, the significance of Machiavelli and the merits of the Tudor despotism. We see how much Shakespeare was writing Tudor propaganda.
 
There are various sub themes that might have some contemporary resonance. The descriptions of the court of Edward IV in the Tower of London reveal much about nineteenth century ideas of effeminacy. Despite Edward's military prowess and somewhat brutal courage when called upon, he presides over a frivolous feminine culture, preoccupied with fashion, entertainment and display. Another theme is the political use made of hypocritical piety. Another is that of the newly created aristocrats, represented by Hastings, relatives of the Queen, pitted against the old baronage in the effort to undermine its power. And it is instructive to see Warwick as putting Edward IV in power then regretting what he had done.
 
Today, when England is looking for a new identity, it is worth looking at earlier settlements. For this reason alone The Last of Barons would be worth rereading. Even for making modern points, it can be useful to focus on something from history. There is much in national life that is only tolerable once we have risen to a vision, one might call it illusion, of mutual agreement. Where there are few we can agree with completely, politics becomes a matter of alliances. To be against something can give a feeling of unity, though our individual voices are unheard. The unifying cause here is regret at the triumph of a modernising despotism. Here is a vision of England in one of its most formative eras, as engaging and thought provoking as much of Shakespeare.
 
New Labour's reforms seem likely to create a nostalgia for the things it is setting out to destroy. Most obvious of these is the vestigial political power of the old hereditary nobility. Encouraged by this attack, new voices are raised against the monarchy. Soon the nation itself may be called upon to give up its sovereignty to join a new European federation. Also some people are talking about the crisis of English identity as Scotland and Wales make moves away from the union, and the Union Jack is decried as a racist symbol. There is potential solace in the England before the Tudors, and a lament for freedoms and values that went into eclipse. This is not jingoism. There is little imperialism in The Last of the Barons, unless against the French who are still regarded as fair game. And it is a perfectly readable book, certainly as much so as much of what is still published in popular paperback editions and expected to be taken seriously as great literature. Much of its merit is its intellectual content. It is meaty enough in this respect. Also it evokes a believable picture of a unique, complex and little known era, and compelling psychological portraits of interesting historical characters. There are riches for which there is no space in this introduction. It is hard to think of any significant feature of the period that has been altogether omitted.
 
Until recently the motive for this journey into the roots of English national feeling and identity would have been generally obvious. The former is increasingly marginalised to the frivolity of football and out of the way places like Northern Ireland. In some quarters it is so unfashionable as to have become almost incomprehensible. In others it is identified with a narrow party line. Historical understanding is obscured by the moralistic prejudices of right and left. The Last of the Barons is good enough to bear a new interpretation. This well constructed book with its far from happy ending can speak a new message as much of the mere background becomes a source of illumination to a generation that is forgetting what once was common currency. It relates to a traditional image and interpretation of England that has played a large role in history and if only for this reason would be worth remembering.
 
Enthusiasts for reform may be tempted to dismiss the whole idea of such an artistic value as mere right wing tosh. In one sense, of course, romanticising the lost cause is inevitably a reactionary idea. But that is not exactly the point that is being made. The object is not directly political, it speaks more to frustration of the will, disillusion and disgust with politics. For aesthetic purposes the lost cause is often far more valuable than the live political option. With the revolt against a one-sided, often philistine, rationalism, comes restoration of imaginative balance. A vision, even a fantasy, of historical rootedness offers an antidote to the rootless metropolitanism of an obnoxious zeitgeist. Such a counteragent is not necessarily rightist, unless as conflicting with certain current loyalties, self righteously assured of their unimpeachable rationality. © SRP Publications 1998
 
           
Absent Yet Present
 
As the flight of a river
    That flows to the sea
My soul rushes ever
    In tumult to thee.
 
A twofold existence
    I am where thou art:
My heart in the distance
    Beats close to thy heart.
 
Look up, I am near thee,
    I gaze on thy face:
I see thee, I hear thee,
    I feel thine embrace.
 
As the magnet's control on
    The steel it draws to it,
Is the charm of thy soul on
    The thoughts that pursue it.
 
And absence but brightens
    The eyes that I miss,
And custom but heightens
    The spell of thy kiss.
 
It is not from duty,
    Though that may be owed,-
It is not from beauty,
    Though that be bestowed:
 
But all that I care for,
    And all that I know,
Is that, without wherefore,
    I worship thee so.
 
Through granite it breaketh
    A tree to the ray:
As a dreamer forsaketh
    The grief of the day,
 
My soul in its fever
    Escapes unto thee:
O dream to the griever!
    O light to the tree!
 
A twofold existence
    I am where thou art:
Hark, hear in the distance
    The beat of my heart!
 
Edward Bulwer-Lytton,   
Lord Lytton.
  
Son:
Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton
Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton (November 8, 1831 - November 24, 1891) was an English statesman and poet.
The son of the novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton, he was educated at Harrow School and at the University of Bonn. When eighteen years old, he went to the United States as private secretary of his uncle, Sir Henry Bulwer, who was Minister at Washington, DC.
http://www.asinah.net/articles/content/r/ro/robert_bulwer_lytton__1st_earl_of_lytton.html
 
KNEBWORTH HOUSE.
Directly off the A1 is the world famous venue for open air rock concerts, but maybe less well-known as the romantically gothic ancestral home of the Lytton family. The story begins in 1490 when Sir Robert Lytton purchased Knebworth, at that time little more than a gatehouse, for £800, and then gradually transformed the building into a traditional style, red brick Tudor manor house. For over 300 years it remained virtually unaltered until, in 1810, Mrs Elizabeth Bulwer-Lytton decided to modernise the house in a rather radical manner. With the demolition of three sides of the house, including the medieval gatehouse previously incorporated by Sir Robert, she proceeded to remodel the one remaining wing and cover the brickwork in stucco.
 
Continuing the work of his mother, Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, the famous novelist and playwright, embellished the exterior of Knebworth in an eccentric gothic fashion that resembled a cross between a fairy-tale castle and an eerie 'Adams family' abode. A liberal array of fancy domes and turrets are vividly contrasted with carved bats, griffins and grotesque gargoyles. In the late 19th century further additions were made to the building by the first Earl of Lytton, but more major changes were made when the 2nd Earl came to Knebworth. During this period much of the internal décor was re-fashioned with the expert advice of his brother-in-law, Sir Edwin Lutyens.
 
Architecturally, the house gives a perfectly clear understanding of the changing styles and ideas right through the ages, with a number of rooms specifically depicting a certain era. An outstanding spectacle is the Banqueting Hall, not only because of its varied 17th century influences and craftsmanship, but also because it holds a fascinating history. Many distinguished guests have passed through this hall, and numbering among them were Charles Dickens and Winston Churchill. On several occasions the celebrated Dickens, great friend of Sir Edward, transformed the hall into a theatre when he and his fellow amateur actors gave private performances at Knebworth. Churchill's connection is more romantically linked to the 2nd Earl's wife, Pamela.
 
Whilst living in India, she met Winston Churchill and he fell in love with her and, no doubt, her great beauty. Despite Pamela's subsequent marriage to the 2nd Earl of Lytton, Churchill remained a lifelong friend and was always welcome at Knebworth where, on occasion, he used to sit and paint in the banqueting hall. There are two rooms entirely dedicated to the life and works of Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, with several personal knick knacks and mementoes highlighting his colourful character. The state drawing room is distinctly Victorian-Gothic, but other areas, including the dining parlour, are typical of the Edwardian re-styling adopted by Lutyens. To commemorate the family's involvement with India, an exhibition of artefacts, collected over some 50 years, is housed in the former squash court. Here are many personal items and treasures from the time of the 1st Earl of Lytton's Viceroyalty, as well as items from Pamela's years in India, and the 2nd Earl's period as Governor of Bengal.
 
So a visit to Knebworth House does not necessarily mean having to endure hours of loud music and throbbing crowds, it might simply prove to be a fascinating historical experience. www.
 
Nearly all of Lord Lytton's works are available at Project Gutenberg as e-texts. http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=1565
Jeremy Condick jpcondick@ntlworld.com

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