If you’ve ever used the expressions “pursuit of the almighty dollar”, “the pen is mightier than the sword”, “the great unwashed” or “it was a dark and stormy night”, you’ve quoted Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, the 1st Baron Lytton*, a popular Victorian novelist and politician. He led a life of more drama and substance than his name now suggests. When King Otto of the Greeks abdicated in 1862, for example, Bulwer-Lytton was offered the throne, but he declined. He is, of course, attached to a long-running and much-loved competition for the worst possible opening sentence in a novel. My Bulwer-Lytton effort follows here.
© 2024 John Oliver
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