The Haunted and the Haunters - Edward Bulwer-Lytton

 The Haunted and the Haunters - Edward Bulwer-Lytton

This short story by Lytton is a good example of his best abilities as a storyteller. He is, perhaps unjustly, most often remembered as the author of ‘It was a dark and stormy night’, the notoriously poor opening line of his novel Paul Clifford. He was, though, a successful novelist, capable of financing an extravagant lifestyle through the sales of his works. He produced work across a range of genres and he probably deserves greater recognition for his contributions to historical novels, mysteries and science fiction. Although his work is rarely great, it is often interesting. However, he should not be read for the same reasons as Dickens or Gaskell or even Collins. Lytton’s life and his politics were far removed from those of the great novelists of social reform.

Lytton’s marriage broke down in 1833, after six years, largely as a consequence of his affairs. Twenty-five years later, Lytton’s wife denounced him at the hustings. His response included having her committed to an insane asylum. The practice of committing ‘unruly’ women to insane asylums had already become notorious. For example, Dickens had written about the case of Louisa Nottidge in Household Words in 1850. After a public outcry, Lady Lytton was released. Despite the uproar, Lytton was elected to parliament as the Conservative member for Hertfordshire. He served as Secretary of State for the Colonies in Lord Derby’s government, the administration that brought India under direct British rule. His friend and fellow novelist, Benjamin Disraeli, was Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Derby government was short-lived, coming to an end in June 1859. Lytton had repeatedly turned down high office in order to concentrate on his writing. He never took another front bench position.

The Haunters and the Haunted was published in the August 1859 issue of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. It makes an interesting comparison with Le Fanu’s An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street. Lytton’s writing is effective but there are significant differences in character motivation and in the way that the problem is resolved. In Le Fanu’s story, the narrator and his friend are students renting rooms that turn out to be horribly haunted. In Lytton’s story, the narrator chooses to go into the house because it has a reputation of being haunted. The dilettante novelist with a fascination in the occult writes of a character much like himself. The narrator is accompanied by a servant and a dog. The effects of the haunting on the two characters and the dog reveal a great deal of Lytton’s worldview.

The word ‘haunt’ derives from ‘frequently visit’, and it retains that meaning as a noun, in the phrase ‘my old haunts’, for example. The association with ghosts and ‘haunted’ places belongs to the 1840s. For all of his flaws, both personal and literary, Lytton was a thoughtful writer, committed to his craft. While I cannot really recommend his novels, though they are, at least, more readable than some Victorian works, this short story is easy to access; and it reveals the core of the Victorian popularity in tales of haunting; property.

[As a footnote, it is worth mentioning that the November 1859 edition of All the Year Round included the first instalment of The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins. Collins’s greatest novel centres around a woman wrongly committed to an asylum.]