The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lady of Lyons, by Edward Bulwer Lytton

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Title: The Lady of Lyons
or Love and Pride

Author: Edward Bulwer Lytton

Posting Date: December 23, 2008 [EBook #2461]
Release Date: January, 2001

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LADY OF LYONS ***

Produced by Dianne Bean, and David Ceponis

THE LADY OF LYONS

or, LOVE AND PRIDE

By Edward Bulwer Lytton

To the author of "Ion."

Whose genius and example have alike contributed
towards the regeneration of The National Drama,

This play is inscribed.

PREFACE.

An indistinct recollection of the very pretty little tale, called "The
Bellows-Mender," suggested the plot of this Drama. The incidents are,
however, greatly altered from those in the tale, and the characters
entirely re-cast.

Having long had a wish to illustrate certain periods of the French
history, so, in the selection of the date in which the scenes of this
play are laid, I saw that the era of the Republic was that in which the
incidents were rendered most probable, in which the probationary career
of the hero could well be made sufficiently rapid for dramatic effect,
and in which the character of the time itself was depicted by the
agencies necessary to the conduct of the narrative. For during the early
years of the first and most brilliant successes of the French Republic,
in the general ferment of society, and the brief equalization of ranks,
Claude's high-placed love; his ardent feelings, his unsettled principles
(the struggle between which makes the passion of this drama), his
ambition, and his career, were phenomena that characterized the age, and
in which the spirit of the nation went along with the extravagance of
the individual.

The play itself was composed with a twofold object. In the first place,
sympathizing with the enterprise of Mr. Macready, as Manager of Covent
Garden, and believing that many of the higher interests of the Drama
were involved in the success or failure of an enterprise equally
hazardous and disinterested, I felt, if I may so presume to express
myself, something of