After a prolific life as an author with a European reputation, outselling Dickens, Edward Bulwer Lytton was ennobled and, on his death, buried in Westminster Abbey. Since the First World War, however, his literary reputation has sunk and he is now little read. Bulwer Lytton is the first modern biography of an extraordinary man whose literary output was prodigious. It ranged from novels, such as The Last Days of Pompeii, and poetry to plays, biographies and extensive political commentaries and journalism. A dandy to rival Disraeli, he lived life in London, at Knebworth, his country house, or more frequently abroad, with hectic intensity. Arousing strong emotions in public, his private life was turbulent in the extreme; his acrimonious and bitter divorce from his wife Rosina providing one of the most public and prolonged marital disputes of the period. Despite this, he became Secretary for the Colonies in 1858 and was responsible for the setting up of Queensland. Leslie Mitchell's biography, written to mark the two hundredth anniversary of Bulwer Lytton's birth, is an account of an eminent and very remarkable Victorian.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton was an English novelist, poet, playwright and politician. He wrote in a variety of genres, including historical fiction, mystery, romance, the occult, and science fiction. Bulwer-Lytton's literary works were highly popular and bestselling novels at the time. Novels & Novellas: The Last Days of Pompeii The Pilgrims of the Rhine Rienzi, the last of the Roman tribunes Falkland Pelham The Disowned Devereux Paul Clifford Eugene Aram Godolphin Asmodeus at Large Ernest Maltravers Alice, or The Mysteries (A sequel to Ernest Maltravers) Calderon, the Courtier Leila, or The Siege of Granada Zicci: A Tale (A prequel to Zanoni) Zanoni Night and Morning The Last of the Barons Lucretia Harold, the Last of the Saxons The Caxtons: A Family Picture A Strange Story My Novel, or Varieties in English Life The Haunted and the Haunters, or The House and the Brain What Will He Do With It? The Coming Race, or Vril: The Power of the Coming Race Kenelm Chillingly The Parisians Pausanias, the Spartan Short Stories: The Incantation The Brothers Historical Works: Athens: Its Rise and Fall Plays: The Lady of Lyons, or Love and Pride Poetry