Rosina Bulwer Lytton
Rosina Bulwer Lytton (née Rosina Doyle Wheeler; 4 November 1802 – 12 March 1882) wrote and published fourteen novels, a volume of essays and a volume of letters. Her husband was Edward Bulwer-Lytton, a novelist and politician. She spelled her married surname without the hyphen used by her husband.
Background
Rosina Doyle Wheeler's mother was the advocate of women's rights Anna Wheeler, the daughter of the Rev. Nicholas Milley Doyle, a Church of Ireland clergyman, Rector of Newcastle, County Tipperary, Ireland,[1][2] while her father was Francis Massey Wheeler, an Anglo-Irish landowner.[1] One of her mother's brothers, Sir John Milley Doyle (1781–1856), led British and Portuguese forces in the Peninsular War and the War of the Two Brothers.[3]
Marriage
Rosina Doyle Wheeler married Edward Bulwer-Lytton (at that time surnamed simply Bulwer) on 29 August 1827. This was against his mother's wishes who withdrew his allowance and he was forced to work for a living.[4]
His writing and efforts in the political arena took a toll upon their marriage, and the couple legally separated in 1836. Her children were taken from her.[5] In 1839, her novel, Cheveley, or the Man of Honour, in which Edward Bulwer-Lytton was bitterly caricatured, was published.
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 following a public outcry. This was chronicled in her book A Blighted Life.[6][7] For years she continued her attacks upon her husband's character; she would outlive him by nine years.
Children
They had two children:
- Lady Emily Elizabeth Bulwer-Lytton (17 June 1828 – 29 April 1848)
- (Edward) Robert Lytton Bulwer-Lytton (8 November 1831 – 24 November 1891); Viceroy of British India from 1876 to 1880
Works
- Cheveley: or, The Man of Honour (1839)
- The Budget of the Bubble Family (1840)
- The Prince-Duke and the Page: An Historical Novel (1843)
- Bianca Cappello: An Historical Romance (1844)
- Memoirs of a Muscovite (1844)
- The Peer's Daughters: A Novel (1849)
- Miriam Sedley, or the Tares and the Wheat: A Tale of Real Life (1850)
- The School for Husbands: or Moliére's Life and Times (1852)
- Behind the Scenes, A Novel (1854)
- The World and His Wife, or a Person of Consequence, a Photographic Novel (1858)
- Very Successful (1859)
- The Household Fairy (1870)
- Where there's a Will there's a Way (1871)
- Chumber Chase (1871)
- Mauleverer's Divorce (1871)
- Shells from the Sands of Time (1876)
- A Blighted Life (1880)
- Refutation of an Audacious Forgery of the Dowager Lady's name to a book of the Publication of which she was totally Ignorant (1880)
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Literary Encyclopaedia - Rosina Bulwer-Lytton (1802-1882) by Marie Mulvey-Roberts, University of the West of England
- ↑ Edward Cave, John Nichols, eds., The Gentleman's Magazine, and Historical Chronicle (1834), p. 276
- ↑ Henry Morse Stephens, Doyle, John Milley from Dictionary of National Biography at Wikisource
- ↑ World Wide Words - Unputdownable
- ↑ "Life of Rosina, Lady Lytton"
- ↑ Lady Lytton (1880). A Blighted Life. London: The London Publishing Office. Retrieved November 28, 2009. Online text at wikisource.org
- ↑ Devey, Louisa (1887). Life of Rosina, Lady Lytton, with Numerous Extracts from her Ms. Autobiography and Other Original Documents, published in vindication of her memory. London: Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co. Retrieved November 28, 2009. Full text at Internet Archive (archive.org)
External links
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