Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton (Vol. V, page 497) — initial composite woodblock engraving for Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton's A Strange Story, first published simultaneously in All the Year Round and Harper's Weekly, Vol. V for 10 August 1861), 11.4 cm. by 11.5 cm wide (4 ½ inches square) vignetted, p. 497. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Commentary: The Prolific English Novelist (1803-1873) and His Gothic Mysticism
MY DEAR BULWER-LYTTON — Is there any possibility of your being induced to write a tale for All the Year Round? It has the largest audience to be got that comprehends intelligence and cultivation, but that audience is already your own, and that is no temptation. (Dickens's letter, dated Friday, 3rd August 1860, cited in Victor Lytton, 340)
Originally serialised in thirty-one weekly numbers in Dickens's own All the Year Round in Great Britain (10 August 1861 to 8 March 1862) and in Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization (also 10 August through 8 March 1862), Bulwer-Lytton's "mystic story" (cited in Victor Lytton, 340) is an odd combination of the Victorian Gothic, spiritualism, Eastern mysticism, the occult, the epistolary technique, and the scientific treatise. Nine parts appeared in the New York weekly without the benefit of illustration, possibly because the Civil War, whose coverage commenced with the assault on Fort Sumter on 27 April 1861, required additional space for illustration. Dickens facilitated simultaneous publication in London and New York by forwarding the proofs directly to Harper's; in consequence, Bulwer-Lytton enjoyed both British and American copyright protection. In total, in a letter dated 3rd August 1860 Dickens offered "three thousand pounds" (cited in Victor Lytton, 344).
Famous for his hugely popular historical potboiler The Last Days of Pompeii (1834), Bulwer-Lytton in later life wrote not only the horror story The Haunted and the Haunters; or, The House and the Brain (1859), but another late popular novel with a supernatural theme, A Strange Story, which influenced Bram Stoker in Dracula (1897). The latter novelist likewise presents the narrative in diaries, letters, and even news items. Stoker's focal character and narrator of the supernatural tale, Jonathan Harker, owes much to Bulwer's scientific rationalist narrator, Dr. Allen Fenwick, in the 1861-1862 Gothic novel.
Still, Bulwer's new work was "little understood or appreciated by contemporary reviewers" (cited in Victor Lytton, 350) and in serial it received "mortifying" reviews. Lytton therefore turned his attention to a series of essays for Blackwood's Magazine and a rhymed comedy on Sir Robert Walpole. Bulwer's other late works include Vril: The Power of the Coming Race (1871), which again reflects the author's peculiar interest in the occult, and was an early example of the new genre of science fiction which developed out of the Sensation Novel.
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use the image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned it and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G. D. A Strange Story. Illustrated by John McLenan. Harper's Weekly V, 10 August — 8 March 1862.
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G. D. A Strange Story. Illustrated by F. O. Freeman and J. N. Hyde. Boston: Gardner A. Fuller, 1862.
Bulwer Lytton, Edward (Lord Lytton). A Strange Story. The Works of Edward Bulwer Lytton, Vol. VII. New York: P. F. Collier, n. d. Pp. 7-242.
Lytton, Victor A. (Lord Lytton). The Life of Edward Bulwer, First Lord Lytton. Vol. II. London: Macmillan, 1913.
Created 21 November 2007 Last modified 30 July 2026