CDV full-length seated portrait of English author Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton by John Jabez Edwin Mayall, operating at 224 Regent Street, London, and 90 King's Road, Brighton, shows the novelist and statesman in a relaxed studio pose that was among the most widely circulated photographic likenesses made of him. Bulwer-Lytton sits in an ornate chair beside a classical column and draped curtain, dressed in a dark frock coat and trousers, his legs crossed casually and his hands resting in his lap. His expression is composed, his hair dark and swept back, with a neat mustache and side whiskers.

A printed signature reading "Sır E. B. Lytton" appears on the front of the mount below the image, and a Reilly stationer's label from 24 Grafton Street, Dublin, is affixed to the reverse. The reverse also bears an extensive handwritten inscription in a collector's hand reading "Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton 1803–1873 / Popular Novelist and Playwright / also member of Parliament / Friend of Chas. Dickens," with dealer code "7/02/09 / CBBHAZ / ED."

Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803–1873) was one of the most commercially successful British writers of the Victorian era, author of The Last Days of Pompeii, Pelham, Eugene Aram, and the play Richelieu. He served as a Member of Parliament and as Colonial Secretary, and his friendship with Charles Dickens was a significant personal and literary relationship spanning decades.