Prolific writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) is best-known today for the opening words of his 1830 novel Paul Clifford: “It was a dark and stormy night” and the oft-quoted statement “The pen is mightier than the sword” (from his 1839 play Richelieu). Less well-known today is the fact that he had a very stormy marriage, and his estranged wife Rosina Bulwer Lytton (1802-1882) fictionalized his infidelities in her novel Cheveley, or, The Man of Honour (1839).

In 1858, when Edward Bulwer-Lytton was running for office, Rosina denounced him publicly. As a consequence, he had her committed to an asylum. He allowed her to be released shortly thereafter, in the wake of negative publicity. In 1866, Rosina wrote an account of the experience, which appeared over a decade later, in 1880 (seven years after Edward’s death), with the title A Blighted Life.

However, it is Rosina’s remarkable novels, published between 1839 and the early 1870s, that best give her perspective on what happened after the Bulwer-Lyttons’ relationship turned sour. Following Rosina’s death in 1882, her executrix continued the effort to vindicate Rosina in the court of public opinion by issuing two books, both containing transcriptions from her manuscript autobiography. The public had a lot of opportunities to know details about the couple’s decades-long grudge match.

Finances plagued Edward and Rosina’s relationship from the start. In 1827, they married against the wishes of Edward’s mother, who consequently reduced his allowance. In the early years, the couple relied on Edward’s novel-writing for their support. By 1834, the tensions in their relationship were exacerbated when Edward brought his mistress with them to Italy. In 1836, they were legally separated.

After the death of his mother in 1844, Edward became a wealthy man. Meanwhile, Rosina (now known as Lady Bulwer Lytton as a result of the death of her mother-in-law) lived in poverty. Edward limited Rosina’s access to money in an effort to force her to grant him a divorce. Her creditors believed her to be a wealthy woman. She, too, wanted a divorce, but not on the terms Edward was offering. In the following decades, she wrote over fifteen novels, mainly on themes related to her own circumstances. As literary historian Marie M. Roberts has noted, in Rosina’s novels, she “explores the tyranny of romantic love and the way it lures women into the unequal partnership of marriage.”

Additionally, Edward pressured his publishers not to publish Rosina’s books. So, as a consequence, her books appeared with the imprints of minor British publishers who were themselves financially insecure. In 1994, Roberts identified seventeen titles by Rosina, some of which were issued anonymously or under pseudonyms. Since that time, more titles have been identified. As literary historian Virginia Blain has noted, today Rosina’s books are largely unobtainable, although her writing is “lively and observant, subversively witty, and certainly original.”

The Library Company has a few books by Rosina Bulwer Lytton, some in London editions, and others in American or French editions.

Rosina’s 1839 novel Cheveley, or, The Man of Honour appeared after the couple had separated but before Edward received his inheritance. In it she skewers her husband, thinly disguised as the fictional character Lord De Clifford, who seduces and betrays the daughter of one of his tenants. The young woman goes mad, but eventually denounces him in court. Revealed as the tyrant he is, he rushes from the courtroom, leaps onto his horse, and almost immediately falls from the horse to his death, perhaps as a result of a gypsy curse. Rosina dedicated the book to “No One Nobody, Esq … the only man whose integrity I have found unimpeachable and whose friendship I have proved unvarying.” Issuing it was clearly an act of revenge against Edward, and men generally.

In 1839, London publisher Edward Bull brought out Cheveley as a three-volume set, issuing a second edition the same year. We don’t know the arrangements Rosina made with Bull, but one 20th-century literary historian describes him as a “vanity publisher,” so Rosina may not have earned much if any money. That same year, a Paris firm issued a one-volume edition in English, and a Stockholm firm issued a three-volume edition in Swedish. Before the existence of international copyright protection, the foreign reprints would not have produced any income for Rosina at all.

The Library Company has a copy of the first American edition of Cheveley, issued by the New York firm of Harper & Brothers in two volumes in 1839, which came to us in 1869 as part of the Rush bequest. But the item I want to show you is this satiric response to the book: Lady Cheveley, or, The Woman of Honour, which first appeared in a London edition in 1839.