5. Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Photo in header: Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton by Abel Lewis albumen carte-de-visite, 1870s NPG x17229 © National Portrait Gallery, London

25 May 1803 – 18 Jan 1873
Rock Walk

Edward was a successful poet, playwright and novelist with an impressive political career, serving twice in Parliament and going on to the House of Lords as Baron Lytton. Edward’s novels are the source of phrases including ‘the great unwashed’; ‘pursuit of the almighty dollar’; ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’.

Unfortunately, his name lives on in The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for the worst beginning to a novel, inspired by Edward’s ‘Paul Clifford’ (1830): ‘It was a dark and stormy night’. Edward had an in-depth knowledge of the occult. One of his most popular excursions into the occult was ‘Vril, the Power of the Coming Race’ (1871) which contributed to the birth of the science fiction genre. The word ‘Vril’ came to be associated with ‘life-giving elixirs’. In 1886 John L Johnston was looking for a name for his ‘liquid life’ beef extract drink. He chose a blend of the words Bovine and Vril, and named the new beefy beverage ‘Bovril’.

Edward died at his Torquay home Argyll Hall on Warren Road, having lived there since 1867. Built in 1849, Argyll Hall became the Roseland Hotel and is now an apartment block called Marine Palms. The house occupies a prominent position here on Rock Walk and can be seen as you head towards the harbourside from the Paignton direction.

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Writers on the Riviera

Take a literary tour around the English Riviera and uncover the places and stories of the greatest writers of all time, who, for the past 200 years, have flocked to the English Riviera.
A-I. Dame Agatha Christie

While many writers travelled to the English Riviera for inspiration, the best-selling novelist of all time is a home-grown talent.
1. Mary Shelley

Mary was a novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer and travel writer, most famous for her novel Frankenstein. She married poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1816. In 1817 the Shelleys holidayed in Torquay.
2. George Bernard Shaw

The Irish playwright is the only person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize for Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938) for ‘Pygmalion’. The 1897 play ‘You Never Can Tell’ was set in Torquay.
3. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

A poet and short story writer with a career spanning 4 decades. Elizabeth wrote about industrialisation, slavery, political leadership, religious controversy and the problems faced by women in society.
4. Wilfred Owen

Take a moment at the War Memorial, a fitting place to mark Wilfred Owen, widely regarded as one of Britain’s greatest war poets.
6. Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Alfred was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria’s reign and remains one of the most popular British poets. Alfred excelled at writing short lyrics, as in ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’.
7. Lesley Pearse

International bestselling author Lesley lives in Torquay. She was told as a child that she had too much imagination for her own good. Clearly this imagination has now been put to good use with 25 novels under her belt!
8. Charles Kingsley

Charles was a priest, a university professor, social reformer, historian and novelist, best known for ‘The Water Babies’, ‘The Heroes’ and ‘Westward Ho!’
9. James Joyce

An Irish novelist, short story writer, poet, teacher, and literary critic, James is regarded as one of the most important 20th century authors.
10. Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin was a naturalist and biologist known for his theory of evolution, the process of natural selection, and as the author of ‘On the Origin of Species’. He lived at No. 2 Meadfoot House in Hesketh Crescent.
11. Adam Nevill

This is the man The Guardian called ‘Britain’s answer to Stephen King’. An award-winning author, renowned for the tensest, scariest writing you’re ever likely to read.
12. Beatrix Potter

Beatrix Potter was an English writer, illustrator, natural scientist, and conservationist best known for ’The Tale of Peter Rabbit’.
13. Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde was one of the most well-known personalities of his day, regarded for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and sparkling conversation.
14. Seán O’Casey

Seán O’Casey was an Irish dramatist and memoirist, living through turbulent times including the 1913 Dublin Lock-out and Strike (starving with fellow workers), the 1916 Easter Rising, the Anglo-Irish War and the Civil War.
Aleister Crowley

The Great Beast 666, Perabduro, Ankh-f-n-khonsu, the wickedest man in the world, Aleister Crowley was a noted – and controversial – occultist. He wrote widely, founded his own religious order, and designed a set of tarot cards that are still used today.
Arthur Conan Doyle

Conan Doyle was a British writer – originally a physician – best known for Sherlock Holmes, one of the most vivid and enduring characters in English fiction.
Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert was a Scottish novelist and travel writer, most noted for Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and A Child’s Garden of Verses.
Rudyard Kipling

Still one of the most popular British authors and poets, Jungle Book author Rudyard Kipling and his wife lived at Rock House, Maidencombe from 1896-1898 on his return from America.
T.S Eliot

Thomas Stearns Eliot, the American-born poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, and literary and social critic Thomas Stearns Eliot, better known by his pen name TS Eliot, was “one of the twentieth century’s major poets”.