What Will He Do with It? — Volume 06
1858
The sixth volume of Bulwer-Lytton's sprawling Victorian masterpiece returns to the glittering social theater of Hyde Park, where London's elite perform their rituals of leisure and influence. The narrative centers on two contrasting figures: Lionel Haughton, a young soldier hungry to carve his own path beyond the battlefield's glory, and Frank Vance, a painter who has won public acclaim yet finds it hollow. Their friendship becomes a lens through which Bulwer-Lytton examines the eternal tension between aspiration and fulfillment, between the self we present and the self we truly are. A mysterious benefactor, Mr. Darrell, threads through their lives with ambiguous motives, hinting at the novel's deeper preoccupation with how circumstance shapes destiny. What distinguishes Bulwer-Lytton is his refusal to let ambition off easy: every character here pays a price for their desires, and the question posed by the title lingers like smoke. For readers who savor Victorian novels where every conversation carries subtext and every relationship contains multitudes.
