A blighted life : A true story by Baroness Rosina Bulwer Lytton Lytton
"A blighted life : A true story" by Baroness Rosina Bulwer Lytton Lytton is an autobiographical memoir written in the late 19th century. It presents the author’s searing account of long-term marital persecution by the celebrated novelist-statesman Edward Bulwer-Lytton and her battle against wrongful incarceration under England’s lunacy laws. Fiercely polemical, it combines personal testimony with a broader indictment of legal, political, and literary elites she believes enabled the abuse. The opening
of this memoir sets the stage with an editor’s preface that hails the narrative as a true record of persecution, denounces the lunacy laws, and frames the story against a backdrop of public outrage and establishment complicity, while noting included portraits of the key figures. Rosina then writes in her own voice—addressing a novelist seeking accounts of asylum abuses—declaring she wants no help as she catalogs a system of spies, smears, and legal traps allegedly deployed by her husband: planted libels, attempted entrapments at Llangollen (including a suspected poisoning and “Miss G—” with a decoy dog), collusion via local post and publicans, and harassment by disreputable agents. She recounts a failed legal ruse involving “Mrs. S—LL—,” the disappearance of papers sent to a senior law lord, and the withholding of her allowance. The sequence culminates in her dramatic public confrontation at the Hertford hustings, her husband’s flight from the platform, and, immediately after, an abortive attempt by a doctor and asylum keeper to have her certified insane—foiled, she says, by her composure—followed by a fruitless request that she name terms for peace. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Lytton, Rosina Bulwer Lytton, Baroness, 1802-1882 |
|---|---|
| Title | A blighted life : A true story |
| Original Publication | London: The London Publishing Office, 1880. |
| Note | Wikipedia page about this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Blighted_Life |
| Credits | The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) |
| Reading Level | Reading ease score: 60.0 (10th to 12th grade). Somewhat difficult to read. |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PR: Language and Literatures: English literature |
| Subject | Authors, English -- 19th century -- Biography |
| Subject | Women and literature -- England -- History -- 19th century |
| Subject | Lytton, Rosina Bulwer Lytton, Baroness, 1802-1882 |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 76426 |
| Release Date | Jul 1, 2025 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 235 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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