THE m m A S OF BULWER-LYTTON by Shankar Basu A thesis presented to the University of London for the degree of Master of Philosophy Royal Holloway College University of London 1974 % ProQuest Number: 10097587 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest 10097587 Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ABSTRACT This thesis is an evaluation of the plays of Bulwer-Lytton. The Introduction provides a general background of drama in the early nineteenth century and a brief estimate of Bulwer’s dramatic career. It also attempts to place Bulwer’s plays in the context of his time. Chapter one examines the nature of Bulwer’s first play, The Duchess de la Valliere. Chapter two evaluates the dramatic qualities of his second play, The Lady of Lyons; or, Love and pride. Chapter three assesses the merits of the third play, Richelieu; or. The Conspiracy, and provides a general discussion of Bulwer’s political ideas. It also establishes the connection between Bulwer’s first three plays depicting three periods in French history, and draws our attention to the author’s approach to history, Chapter four discusses the fourth play. The Sea-Captain; or. The Birthright. Chapter five is an analysis of his fifth play. Money. In this chapter there is also a comparison between Bulwer and Thomas William Robertson. Chapter six is an assessment of Bulwer’s last successful play. Not So Bad As We Seem; or. Many Sides to a Character. In general, chapters one to six provide a history of the writing of the plays and their critical reception and also consider Bulwer’s method of plot-construction, characterisation and his important ideas. The Conclusion discusses the later performances of Bulwer’s plays, their interest for the twentieth- century audience, and traces briefly his reception in the twentieth century and provides a summing up of his characteristics as noted in the six plays. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to acknowledge my gratitude to certain persons and institutions: to Dr. Katharine J. Worth of Royal Holloway College without whose guidance this thesis could not have been written; to Lady Cobbold for permitting me to make use of the Bulwer-Lytton collection of papers at the Hertford County Record Office; to the Trustees of the British Museum for allowing me to consult books and periodicals, and the John Forster Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum; to , Royal Holloway College for awarding me a studentship for two years; to the Librarian and staff of the Senate House of the University of London; to the Librarian and staff of Royal Holloway College; to Dr. Dewey Ganzel and the University of Chicago Library for permission to consult Dr. Ganzel's thesis on Bulwer's plays; to my wife Jharna, for her unfailing help at various stages of my researches; and finally, to Mrs. B. Nelson- Smith for typing the thesis with great care. Key to Abbreviations Authors Abbreviations Full Titles Bulwer-Lytton La Valliere The Duchess de la Valliere The Lady The Lady of Lyons; or, Love and Pride Richelieu Richelieu; or. The Conspiracy The Sea-Captain The Sea-Captain; or, The Birthright Not So Bad Not So Bad As We Seem; or, Many Sides to a Character Walpole Walpole; or. Every Man has his Pride Junius Brutus Junius Brutus; or. The Household Gods Other Works Joanna Baillie Plays Flays on the Passions J.B. Buckstone Luke the Labourer Luke the Labourer; or, The Lost Son Lord Byron Marino Faliero Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice G. Colman, the Younger John Bull John Bull; or. The Englishman's Fireside J. Sheridan Knowles Virginius Virginius; or. The Liberation of Rome The Wife The Wife; A Tale of Mantua The Earl of Lytton The Life of The Life of Edward Bulwer, Edward Bulwer First Lord Lytton Charles R. Maturin Bertram Bertram; or, The Castle of St. Aldobrand Thomas N. Talfourd Glencoe Glencoe; or. The Fate of the Macdonalds Helen M. Williams Perourou The History of Perourou; or. The Bellows Mender Note on the Text Bulwer*s plays passed through two different stages of composition; firstly, the writing of the manuscripts which was done in collaboration with Macready, and included many suggestions made by him; secondly, after the first performance Bulwer made changes in the form of omissions, sometimes quite extensive, which were maintained in the subsequent editions of the plays. In view of this, I have used the later and final editions of the plays. The Knebworth Edition of Bulwer's Dramatic Works Vol. I, published in 1876, has been used for The Duchess de la Valliére, The Lady of Lyons, Richelieu and Not So Bad As We Seem. For The Sea-Captain which was excluded from the Knebworth and also from earlier collections of the plays, I have used the text in the edition of l840 published under the title of the series - Eaudry's European Library. This was the last edition to have appeared in Bulwer*s lifetime. The text of Money used is edited by George Rowell in his Nineteenth-Century Plays first published by the Oxford University Press in 1953» This text is a "recension of three printed versions and the Lord Chamberlain's 1 manuscript copy in the British Museum". The Bibliography at the end of this thesis, however, includes other editions of Bulwer's plays which I have consulted in the course of my researches. Editions of other works, including nineteenth-century plays, quoted or referred to in this thesis are also mentioned in the Bibliography. 1 Nineteenth-Century Plays, George Rowell (ed.). Introduction, p. xii, c o n t e n t s Page Introduction...................... 7 Chapter I The Duchess de la Valliere............ 22 Chapter II The Lady of Lyons; or, Love and Pride .... ^6 Chapter III Richelieu; orÿ The C o n s p i r a c y .............. 96 Chapter IV The Sea-Captain; or, The Birthright ..... 141 Chapter V M o n e y ................................ 164 Chapter VI Not So Bad As We Seem; or. Many Sides to a Character ................................ 202 Conclusion.................................. 231 Appendix - Datés of the First Performances of Bulwer’s Plays ................ 247 Bibliography ................................ 233 INTRODUCTION Until recently it was considered that the nineteenth century did not produce a dramatist of any substantial importance with the exception of Shaw. Another view was that in the barren lands of the English drama of the last century no effective dramatist came forward until the production of Society and Caste of Thomas W. Robertson in the eighteen-sixties. Yet the histories of nineteenth- century English drama are full of names of the dramatists who produced popular and successful plays for the stage of their time. Critics have generalised their characteristics and attempted to evaluate them in the context of the history of English drama. But most of these histories deal with the dramatists cursorily and give a bare analysis of their plays. There are very few full-length studies of them. The tendency has been to discuss the dramatists who rose to fame after Robertson and neglect those who had appeared in the earlier decades. The dramatists of the period from the beginning of the century to the arrival of Robertson have greatly suffered from this neglect. From time to time in our century there have appeared some studies of these dramatists, as for example M.S. Corhart's Life and Works of Joanna Baillie (1923)» Townsend Walsh's The Career of Dion Boucicault (1915)» Leslie H. Meeks's Sheridan Knowles and the Theatre of His Time (1933)» Winton Tolies's Tom Taylor and the Victorian Drama (1940) and Richard M. Kelly's Douglas Jerrold (1972), but there are still many dramatists who need careful studies of their plays. One of them is Bulwer-Lytton whose dramatic career began in the third decade of the last century and lasted into the sixth. The time has now arrived when an examination of his plays is necessary. Charles H. Shattuck has called Bulwer "a significant English dramatist". This significance lies at the root of Bulwer's dramatic output. As an introduction to Bulwer it can be said that he is considered to be one of the few dramatists of his time who, to some extent, tried to combine literay merit and theatrical technique. The atmosphere in which Bulwer was brought up had a considerable influence on his total make-up. Born in I803 he grew up in the atmosphere of Romanticism. The French Revolution had preceded him by fourteen years and Lyrical Ballads by five. Wordsworth and Coleridge were writing their best poetry and the best of Scott, Byron, Shelley and Keats was yet to come, as were the works of Jane Austen. And Blake had just begun his Prophetic Books. Behind him was the world of the Gothic whose door was opened by such works as The Castle of Otranto, The Mysteries of Udolpho, Castle Rackrent and Vathek. The Industrial Revolution had been on its wheels for some time. As a man, Bulwer became the most controversial figure in the literature of his time. His taste was primarily romantic, preferring the world of imagination and fancy; he had great admiration for Byron and Scott.