dward Bulwer Lytton (1803-1873) was an extremely versatile
writer, who tried almost every kind of novel known to the nineteenth
century. In his early life he wrote poems and dramas, under the influence
of Byron; but his first notable work, _Pelham_ (1828), one of the best of
his novels, was a kind of burlesque on the Byronic type of gentleman. As a
study of contemporary manners in high society, _Pelham_ has a suggestion of
Thackeray, and the resemblance is more noticeable in other novels of the
same type, such as _Ernest Maltravers_ (1837), _The Caxtons_ (1848-1849),
_My Novel_ (1853), and _Kenelm Chillingly_ (1873). We have a suggestion of
Dickens in at least two of Lytton's novels, _Paul Clifford_ and _Eugene
Aram_, the heroes of which are criminals, pictured as the victims rather
than as the oppressors of society. Lytton essayed also, with considerable
popular success, the romantic novel in _The Pilgrims of the Rhine_ and
_Zanoni_, and tried the ghost story in _The Haunted and the Haunters_. His
fame at the present day rests largely upon his historical novels, in
imitation of Walter Scott, _The Last Days of Pompeii_ (1834), _Riettza_
(1835), and _Harold_ (1848), the last being his most ambitious attempt to
make the novel the supplement of history. In all his novels Lytton is
inclined to sentimentalism and sensationalism, and his works, though
generally interesting, seem hardly worthy of a high place in the history of
fiction.

KINGSLEY. Entirely different in spirit are the novels of the scholarly
clergyman, Charles Kingsley (1819-1875). His works naturally divide
themselves into three classes. In the first are his social studies and
problem novels, such as _Alton Locke_ (1850), having for its hero a London
tailor and poet, and _Yeast_ (1848), which deals with the problem of the
agricultural laborer. In the second class are his historical novels,
_Hereward the Wake, Hypatia_, and _Westward Ho! Hypatia_ is a dramatic
story of Christianity in contact with paganism, having its scene laid in
Alexandria at the beginning of the fifth century. _Westward Ho_! (1855),
his best known work, is a stirring tale of English conquest by land and sea
in the days of Elizabeth. In the third class are his various miscellaneous
works, not the least of which is _Water-Babies_, a fascinating story of a
chimney sweep, which mothers read to their children at bedtime,--to the
great delight of the round-eyed little listeners under the counterpane