a discharge lamp lighting device combines one or more discharge lamps and a backswing booster including essentially a power source circuit having a power source connected in series with a ballast and a high voltage generating circuit having an oscillation capacitor and a series circuit of a nonlinear inductor and a switching semiconductor . the supply voltage for the discharge lamp from the power source circuit is established to the extent permissible by the lower limit for sustaining an arc discharge of the lamp so that the terminal voltage of the ballast in the lamp operation is maintained as low as possible . the preferred backswing booster is of small size and an impedance circuit having a capacitor either with or without a bias coil is added to the high voltage generating circuit to produce a momentary high voltage . a leakage transformer or a voltage transformer with a tap or with a supplemental winding may be coupled to the power source circuit to establish a specified potential point from which voltage for the high voltage generating circuit is supplied to reduce the applied voltage during the lamp operation . an economical lighting device for the sequential ignition of two discharge lamps by means of a single high voltage generating circuit is disclosed .