Bulwer-Lytton, Robert (1831-1891)

Robert Bulwer-Lytton, who wrote poetry as Owen Meredith, was the younger literary friend Lewes encouraged from the start: Lewes noticed his first volume, Clytemnestra, in the Leader in 1855, and as editor of the Fortnightly Review in 1865 printed his poems and asked for more. Eliot knew him directly too: in 1862 he wrote from Vienna to thank her for encouraging words about his anonymous verses in All the Year Round, and in 1869 she thanked him for correcting two errors in the gypsy names of The Spanish Gypsy. He corresponded with Lewes from 1865 until Lewes's death, exchanging comic stories and political news, and Lewes's thirteen letters to him as Viceroy of India (1876-80) survive in the India Office records. After Lewes's death Robert wrote to Eliot from Calcutta calling him "the last of the few friends wiser than myself, to whom from boyhood I have looked up." He married Edith Villiers in 1864, and Eliot's friendship with Edith, who lost two small sons in 1871 and 1874, runs through her letters to them both; Oscar Wilde, his close friend in his last year, dedicated Lady Windermere's Fan to his memory.

George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett, https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org

Robert Bulwer-Lytton (1831-1891), Bulwer-Lytton, Robert (1831-1891), Social Network Gallery, George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett, https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed November 11, 2026. https://www.georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/97176