Tan calf spine with green title plate, gilt banding and title. Brown marbled boards.

F.B.A. provides an in-depth photographic presentation of this item to stimulate your feel and touch. More traditional book descriptions are immediately available

Rienzi, der letzte der Tribunen ( Rienzi, the last of the tribunes; WWV 49) is an early opera by Richard Wagner in five acts, with the libretto written by the composer after Edward Bulwer-Lytton ‘s novel of the same name (1835). The title is commonly shortened to Rienzi.

Nicola Gabrini (1313 – 8 October 1354), commonly known as Cola di Rienzo or  Rienzi, an Italian medieval politician and popular leader, styled himself as “tribune of the Roman people”. For his demagogic rhetoric, popular appeal and anti-establishment (as nobility) sentiment, some sources consider him an earlier populist and proto-fascist figure. Having advocated the abolition of Papal power and the unification of Italy, Cola re-emerged in the 19th century as a romantic memory among leaders of liberal nationalism and was adopted as a precursor of the 19th-century Risorgimento.

Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, PC (25 May 1803 – 18 January 1873) was an English writer and politician. He served as a Whig member of Parliament from 1831 to 1841 and a Conservative from 1851 to 1866. He was Secretary of State for the Colonies from June 1858 to June 1859, choosing Richard Clement Moody as founder of British Columbia. He declined the Crown of Greece in 1862 after King Otto abdicated. He was created Baron Lytton of Knebworth in 1866.

Bulwer-Lytton’s works sold and paid him well. He coined famous phrases like “the great unwashed”, “pursuit of the almighty dollar”, “the pen is mightier than the sword”, “dweller on the threshold”, and the opening phrase “It was a dark and stormy night.” The sardonic Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, held annually since 1982, claims to seek the “opening sentence of the worst of all possible novels”.