Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
(b:1803 – d:1873)
Author of the world’s most famous opening line, from the novel Paul Clifford (1830):
It was a dark and stormy night and the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”
Author of the novel Vril, The Power of the Coming Race, which describes an ancient subterranean race with a secret power source. This sci-fi novel was taken very seriously by conspiracy researchers, used to trace the origins of the Vril Society and Nazi UFOs.
Bulwer-Lytton’s science fiction and racial ideology is considered a major influence on Madame Blavatsky, Theosophy, and subsequent New Age thought.