Lucretia

Lucretia is Edward Bulwer Lytton's dark, morally charged companion to The Caxtons, a novel shaped by his conviction that early home life, money, and disciplined effort determine character and fate. Drawing on real crimes and the disturbing intelligence of notorious offenders, he turns sensational material into a serious warning about impatience, ambition, wealth, and the corrosive power of evil. The result is a tragedy rooted in everyday life, where cultivated minds can become instruments of destruction and even extraordinary wickedness exposes ordinary human weakness. That grim vision unfolds across two worlds: revolutionary Paris and genteel England. In Paris, a cold, scholarly father, secretly aligned with the Terror, leads his pampered son to the guillotine, where public spectacle becomes private horror and a family's betrayal ends in devastating recognition. In England, the old manor of Sir Miles St. John frames a society of shifting manners, from polished London cynicism to rural old-world dignity, and introduces figures such as the brilliant émigré Olivier Dalibard and the troubled politician Mainwaring. Exile, class, love, ambition, and hidden paternity all deepen the novel's atmosphere of moral tension and tragic consequence. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.