Books like Bulwer Lytton by L. G. Mitchell

An engineer's descent into a secret subterranean world leads to a utopian society ruled by the Vril-ya, but his accidental romance and personal growth threaten to destroy it.

Bernard Crick’s scholarly biography of George Orwell, released in 1980, offers a comprehensive 589‑page portrait of the English novelist and journalist, complete with photographs, extensive notes, and an index.

Michael Shelden's biography draws on original interviews, undiscovered letters, and rigorous research to illuminate George Orwell's life and art, showing how his literary legacy, rather than his political stance, shaped the twentieth century.

Richard Holmes's award‑winning first volume of his Coleridge biography offers a richly illuminated portrait of the Romantic poet and philosopher, exploring his literary genius, personal complexities, and influence on 19th‑century English literature.

Samuel Pepys, a naval administrator and diarist, kept a private diary that captures the turbulent world of Restoration London and explores his inner life of relations with women, fears and ambitions, and political shifts.

We know the facts of Mary Shelley's life in some detail--the death of her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, within days of her birth; the upbringing in the house of her father, William Godwin, in a house full of radical thinkers, poets, philosophers, and writers; her elopement, at the age of seventeen, with Percy Shelley; the years of peripatetic travel across Europe that followed. But there has been no literary biography written this century, and previous books have ignored the real person--what she actually thought and felt and why she did what she did--despite the fact that Mary and her group of second-generation Romantics were extremely interested in the psychological aspect of life. In this probing narrative, Fiona Sampson pursues Mary Shelley through her turbulent life, much as Victor Frankenstein tracked his monster across the arctic wastes. Sampson has written a book that finally answers the question of how it was that a nineteen-year-old came to write a novel so dark, mysterious, anguished, and psychologically astute that it continues to resonate two centuries later. No previous biographer has ever truly considered this question, let alone answered it. We know the facts of Mary Shelley's life in some detail, but previous books have ignored the real person-- what she actually thought and felt and why she did what she did. Sampson pursues Mary Shelley through her turbulent life, and answers the question of how it was that a nineteen-year-old came to write a novel so dark, mysterious, anguished, and psychologically astute that it continues to resonate two centuries later. -- adapted from jacket.