#Edward Bulwer-Lytton

[weirdlookindog]

Odilon Redon (1840-1916) - Le contour vaporeux d’une forme humaine (The vaporous outline of a human form)

plate 1/6 from Edward Bulwer-Lytton's "The Haunted House" (La Maison Hantée), 1896

[blackswaneuroparedux]

A pipe is a fountain of contemplation, the source of pleasure, the companion of the wise; and the man who smokes, thinking like a philosopher and acts like a Samaritan.

- Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

[cantsayidont]

April 1935. Seeing people refer to Cardinal Richelieu as "the Catholic Darth Vader" (which seems entirely apt) brought to mind this 1935 movie with George Arliss. Largely forgotten today, Arliss was one of the most respected actors of his era, having had a lengthy career on stage and in silents before making his first talkie in 1929. Most of his talkie vehicles feature him as a cagy old Tory reprobate triumphing over his opponents through a combination of guile and charm, usually while also showing his support for #girlbossing by arranging an appropriate match for a young female protege — "appropriate match" in most cases meaning "a stalwart, none-too-bright young man of good prospects who can be made to do whatever she says." This is precisely the formula for CARDINAL RICHELIEU, which is based (loosely) on an old Edward Bulwer-Lytton play: Richelieu protects his protege (Maureen O'Sullivan) from the unwelcome attentions of the king (Edward Arnold), finds her a good (dumb) husband (Cesar Romero in one of his earliest featured roles), and saves France with his cunning stratagems. He's even a cat person, and his cat, Mistigris, features in a lot of the posters and promo images.

Arliss later reprised his role in CARDINAL RICHELIEU on THE LUX RADIO THEATRE in January 1939, reuniting most of the film cast. I think that might actually have been his final public performance; he was in his 70s by then, and his last movie role (in DR. SYN) had been in 1937.

CARDINAL RICHELIEU has nothing directly to do with THE THREE MUSKETEERS, but it should be mandatory viewing for people trying to adapt the latter, who often seem to struggle with the fact that while Richelieu is the central antagonist of the Dumas book, he isn't actually the villain of that story.

[julesofnature]

Music, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit and never dies.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton

[mxcottonsocks]

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, justifying giving his fallen-woman character a happy ending, 1838:

And [name of character]!—Will the world blame us if you are left happy at the last? We are daily banishing from our law-books the statutes that disproportion punishment to crime. Daily we preach the doctrine that we demoralize wherever we strain justice into cruelty. It is time that we should apply to the Social Code the Wisdom we recognize in Legislation! It is time that we should do away with the punishment of death for inadequate offences, even in books; it is time that we should allow the morality of atonement, and permit to Error the right to hope, as the reward of submission to its suffering.

[Book this is from under the cut]

The quote is from the last paragraph of Alice, or The Mysteries (1838), which is a sequel to Ernest Maltravers, or The Eleusinia (1837). The books don't really stand alone, they are two halves of the same story.

[opera-ghosts]

On October 20. 1842 in the Semperoper Dresden the Opera “Rienzi” from RICHARD WAGNER premiered. Here we see the Poster of the Hofoper Wien, today Wiener Staatsoper for this Opera. Between 1871-1934 the opera was there played in the same Production for 99 Performances.

[theladyactress]

Anna Cora Mowatt and Anne Blake

Part I: Intriguing, But Less Than Ground-Breaking [A recording of this play is available at Librivox] John Westland Marston’s 1852 play, “Anne Blake” makes me glad I’m writing a blog. As you may have noticed, researching Anna Cora Mowatt’s acting roles has caused me to develop a taste for mid-19th-century popular drama. I found this script to be a wonderful example of the genre. If you too find…

[viceoferudition]

He who studies old books will always find in them something new, and he who reads new books will always find in them something old.

The Coming Race by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

[immaculatasknight]

Ivy League ideology

[kaajoo]

It was a dark and stormy night, made darker still by the melancholy that gripped the drainpipes of my soul in a plumber's wrench of despair that opened the u-trap of my consciousness to remove the last, great greaseball of hope.

Jim Anderson, Flushing, MI

[yoestuveaquiunavezfrases21]

1675- Si un rostro hermoso es una carta de recomendación, un buen corazón es una letra de crédito.

(Edward George Bulwer - Lytton)

[annarexcouture]

[blackswaneuroparedux]

He who doth not smoke hath either known no great griefs, or refuseth himself the softest consolation, next to that which comes from heaven.

- Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

[cantsayidont]

March 1947. The destruction of Pompeii à la Jack Kirby, in a panel from the CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED adaptation of THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. The inks are by Dick Ayers.

[thebeautifulbook]

LUCILLE by Owen Meredith (aka Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton) (New York: Crowell, c.1890)

source

[mxcottonsocks]

The Caxtons by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

“We leave ourselves in the dark to save a moth from the flame, brother!"

vs

I barbarously hope it is frizzing behind that great black coal in the grate.