So I have finally finished my book. If you have spent any time with me over the last 17 years, you will no doubt have had your ear bent at some point about my great-great-great-aunt Emily Bulwer Lytton (1828-1848), and how, in 1999, we stumbled upon her open coffin in the previously bricked up Mausoleum in Knebworth Park, and a box of unread cross-written letters that she wrote that have been hidden in our Attic since the 1840s. (Cross-written letters are where the correspondent turns the paper 90 degrees and writes over what they have already written – until postage got cheaper in the 1860s it was common. They are fiendishly difficult to the modern eye. And even harder when written, as Emily sometimes does when telling secrets, in Old German!)
17 years later – almost as long as Emily’s tragic short life – I have at last finished writing her story, and the story of the extraordinary adventures I have had uncovering its mysteries and debunking its legends. It is a tale of a tormented heroine, villainous celebrity parents, violence, scandal, abuse, abandonment, gothic governesses and foreign doctors, a passionate adolescent love story, a tragic haunting mysterious death as Europe burns in the flames of revolution… I wish I could persuade you to buy it. And yet I know I will struggle. Because in my enthusiasm I have made it almost 1000 pages long, across two beautiful full-colour illustrated volumes – that are consequently not inexpensive. I couldn’t help it. The story was just too good to boil down.
So you will have to take my word for it. Or maybe get a taste of the story by taking a guided tour of Knebworth House this Easter Holidays – we have a small exhibit on Emily and the biography which some of you may have seen on the Parish Open Day. Alternatively, you could weigh up the difference between the cost of a family meal out, and my volumes – and decide that maybe two beautiful hardbacks and hours of fascinating stories and images are worth the equivalent of a night out at the Italian or the Indian. If you do, God Bless You – the set is £60 bought with cash or cheque at our Estate Office. If you go looking for it on Amazon, with shipping, it is more like £80 – and for that I totally understand a preference for dinner out with pudding and a fancy bottle of wine!
Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com