Edward Bulwer-Lytton is famous for the opening line:  "It was
a dark and stormy night."  The contest that (someone?) used to
run, in which the purpose was to write really excruciating
prose, was called the Bulwer-Lytton contest.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton was born on the same day as Ralph Waldo
Emerson.  No extant report on that day's weather.

Glen Johnson
Catholic Univ.