EUGENE ARAM, a novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (q.v.) written in 1831 and pub lished in 3 vols., 1832. It was founded on the career of an English scholar, Eugene Aram: b. 1704; executed for the murder of one Clark in 1759. The character of the murderer and the circumstances of his life made the case one of the most interesting, from a psychological point of view, in the criminal annals of England. Aram was a scholar of unusual ability, who, selftaught, had acquired a considerable knowl edge.of languages, and was even credited with certain original discoveries in the domain of philology. Of a mild and refined disposition, his act of murder seemed a complete contradic tion of all his habits and ideals of life. 'Eugene Aram' is an unusually successful study in fiction of a complex psychological case. At the time of its publication, it caused a great stir in England, many attacks being made upon it on the ground of its false morality. To the present generation its romance is of more inter est perhaps than its psychology. Some years after the novel was first published, the author changed his opinion concerning the guilt of Aram and as a result also changed the story beginning with the edition of 1851. The Eng
lish poet, Thomas Hood, wrote a poem on the same theme entitled (The Dream of Eugene Aram' (London 1831). It has also been dramatized, first by Bulwer-Lytton, who, how ever, never finished the play but published it in its unfinished forrn in The New Monthly Maga zine and Literary Journal (Vol. XXXVIII, p.
401, London 1833), and later attached it to the novel itself. Other dramatic versions were pub lished by Moncrieff, W. T., 'Eugene Aram, or Saint Robert's Cave' (in (French's Acting Edition of Plays,' Vol. CIII, London and New Yorlc, n. d.) ; Williams, E W. H., (Eugene Aram. A Play in Five Acts' (New Orleans 1874), and Wills, W. G., (Eugene Aram' which was produced in 1873 by Henry Irving. For the history and life of Eugene Aram consult Scatcherd, N., (Memoirs of Eugene Aram' (London 1838).
EUGkNE DE BEAUHARNATS, de bo-ar-na. See BEAUHARNAIS, EUGENE DE