Description

 



It Was A Dark and Stormy Night 22-11-2009



Ian Peacock reveals the dark and gothic life of the Victorian writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who coined the archetypally
gothic opening line, 'It was a dark and stormy night'.



We may no longer be familiar with his novels, nor with his scientific theories, but thanks largely to the Snoopy
cartoons, The Goon Show and sundry other borrowers and mockers, everyone can quote part of Bulwer-Lytton's famous
opening sentence: 'It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents - except at occasional intervals, when it
was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling
along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness'.



San Jose University in California now run a very popular Dark and Stormy Night competition - the winner is charged with
writing the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels.



But Ian Peacock has a sneaking suspicion that there is more to Bulwer-Lytton than being simply the patron saint of
Victorian gothic kitsch. He was hugely popular in his lifetime; Dickens and Mary Shelley were both fans, as was Wagner,
who used one of Lytton's novels as the basis for his early opera Rienzi.



Works like Pelham and The Last Days of Pompeii made Bulwer-Lytton a literary star. And he was fascinated by scientific
discovery, as well as the spookier side of life - his novel The Coming Race is still popular among the science fiction
community. It was in this book that he created Vril, electro-magnetic energy which fuels flying machines and automata
and even makes telepathy possible. Add Vril to bovine and you end up with the popular beef-tea energy drink Bovril -
another Bulwer-Lytton legacy.



He also coined the phrases 'the great unwashed' and 'the almighty dollar'. And as if that wasn't enough for one life,
Bulwer-Lytton became an outrageous dandy, served as an MP, dabbled in the occult and had a wife who publicly heckled and
libelled him for decades.



Ian explores the writer's stormy life, his work and his popularity among his contemporaries. He visits Knebworth Hall,
Lytton's home for many years and the source of some of his darker writing, and talks to Professor John Sutherland to
judge Lytton's literary merits. Sutherland describes him as, among other things, 'the father of the English detective
novel, science fiction, the fantasy novel and the thriller'.





Review From The Radio Times



Victorian author Edward Bulwer-Lytton had plenty of feathers in his cap. He was an MP who counted Dickens, Mary Shelley
and Wagner among his fans, and he is credited with fathering science fiction, the thriller and the historical novel. Yet
his legacy is eclipsed by one sentence: the hammy start of his otherwise forgotten novel, Paul Clifford. As well as
titling this programme, the sentence is the name of a literary competition in California where entrants have to devise
opening lines for abysmal books. Here, presenter Ian Peacock cheerfully sets about restoring Lytton's literary
reputation. He doesn't manage it, but his light-hearted investigations do unearth a sometime dandy who married against
his family's wishes, resided in a gargoyle-strewn mansion, and was mired in scandal. It's colourful stuff - almost
enough to justify the title.



-- Claire Webb



Type                : mpeg 1 layer III

Bitrate             : 160

Mode                : joint stereo

Frequency           : 44100 Hz

Length              : 00:27:48

Encoder             : Lame 3.97

Source              : iPlayer