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EmbraceableYew t1_j8nsbps wrote

This is from Edward Bulwer-Lytton. It is too bad that this seems to be mainly what he is remembered for.

He was a 19th-century English novelist, dandy, and politician. He was friends with and served with Benjamin Disraeli, another dandy/writer/ politician (and ultimately prime minister). EBL was colonial secretary . Pelham was a popular novel of his. Also The Last Days of Pompeii, among many, many others.

If I am not mistaken, ELB would get elected by explaining that under no circumstances should anyone ever vote for him.

It was a different time. I might be mixing him up with someone else on this point.

Anyway, he was an interesting and eccentric fellow.

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BDMac2 t1_j8pqgwb wrote

His most impactful piece of writing is probably Vril, the Power of the Coming Race, a story about mystical beings who live inside the Earth. Theosophists such as Helena Blavatsky accepted this book as part of the secret occult truth of the world. Theosophists ideas about the “root races” such as the “Aryans” led to a lot of Nazi beliefs. So strange how a proto-science fiction book anonymously published in 1871 can help lead to one of the most brutal regimes in the history of the world.

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