Suffocating Suspense
Richard Davenport-Hines, 16 March 2000
Cult Criminals: The Newgate Novels 1830-47
by Juliet John.
Routledge, 2750 pp., £399, December 1998,0 415 14383 7 Show More
by Juliet John.
Routledge, 2750 pp., £399, December 1998,
“... Bulwer-Lytton married in 1827 an Irishwoman, Rosina Wheeler. His mother severed his allowance as a mark of her displeasure. This forced him to write for money and increased the attraction for him of déclassé men. The life of Bill Gawtrey, in Night and Morning (1841), becomes steadily seedier after he graduates from Cambridge until he is reduced to operating ... ”